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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?

#571

Post by marcosdumay »

r3bl wrote: post #547
mseebach wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imagine a table with an e-ink display that can show you whatever you want them to show you. Imagine reading news above your sink while doing the dishes. Imagine the entire walls constructed with e-ink displays in your home and being able to change the wallpapers in your living room depending on what's currently in your mind. All of those could have a "read-only" mode until you push a button, they would use pretty muc…

E-ink isn't good enough for any of those yet.

I don't know how much research is ongoing into it, and I do think it's underutilized (I can't understand why smart watches use LCDs), but there are many breakthroughs before we can get those things you mention.

I still expect it to get all over the world, eventually.

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

#572

Post by pryelluw »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #363

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 my wife on ICQ after using the same search method you described. :)

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

#573

Post by dexterdexter »

Segway! I'm surprised no one else mentioned this. The hype equaled the excitement it triggered on people. Personally, it signaled the arrival of the future at the time. Fast forward to today and they are just niche transportation devices used by tourists and to a lesser degree by some security officials.

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

#574

Post by baldfat »

fsloth wrote: post #102
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.

Uh oh, I think I'm about to rant. Scuse me. Given how cheap even powerful general purpose computers are I don't think they ever will be prized beyond availability. Aficionados, internet stores, arm, Linux, market forces, etc. To some part, good riddance. Software engineers and product designers are the reason the PC is effectively broken by design in UX. Because they are inexcusably slow. There is 0 reason anything I…

> My friggin circa 1984 Mac Plus felt faster on most stuff than the generic desktop PC

See how fast it felt.

https://youtu.be/XwbrCYJcrKQ?t=4m34s

No way and NO HOW! That statement is 100% false. The issue is you remember that it felt fast. My Amiga felt like lightening to me in 1985 and I still boot it up from time to time. The delays in everything is over the top and Mac 128k were horribly slow.

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

#575

Post by baldfat »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #565

Asynchronous circuits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_circuit I was convinced that we were going to enter a new phase of computing, where the processor wasn't stuck at the speed of its slowest component.

It will have to happen sometime in our life time.

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

#576

Post by michaelmior »

SteveMoody73 wrote: post #429
Andrenid wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love an e-ink dashboard in my car so it's not so glary, e-ink tablet that does a bit more than a Kindle but isn't a full media player (super thin super light with basic browser for wiki, news, rss, and email), ~20" e-ink screen on the inside of my apartment door with calendar and notifications and todolist, there's so many cool things we could do with the tech if we could produce it cheaper and bigger. Not everyt…

Have you seen reMarkable? Doesn't seem to have a browser from what I can see but more capable than a kindle. https://remarkable.com/

I got mine a few weeks ago. It's true there's no browser but the note-taking capabilities are great. It's running Linux so I can only assuming it's a matter of time before someone starts releasing some custom updates.

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

#577

Post by theklub »

GistNoesis wrote: post #463
grahamburger wrote: post #134

3D printing. Turns out making little plastic shapes isn't all that useful. Seems obvious in hindsight.

It's already there working 24 hours a day in many makers home. Why isn't it taking the world faster ? This is a classic chicken and egg problem which is being solved daily via the market invisible hands. As a maker, what reduced my printing usage a few years back was the cost of the filament (which is now cheaper but can still be reduced by a 10x factor), and the noise of the machine (which can be made now noiseless)…

Off-topic but, what printer do you recommend for starting out?

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

#578

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nl wrote: post #535
bsaul wrote: post #263

BeOS . 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 reco…

In an alternate universe, Apple bought Be. Inc. instead of NeXT. It nearly happened too - they got down to talking price[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS#History

Would Apple have been resurgent without Steve Jobs? That is a huge what if.

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

#579

Post by mavhc »

avar wrote: post #543
IshKebab wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha that video is not a fast update rate. It's just only updating a small bit of the screen at a time so you can't really see the slowness. Modern kindles are pretty fast but not video speed, and they still have to blank the screen after a few updates.

Yes, obviously I'm not going to be linking to a video showing a technology that doesn't exist yet. The video serves to demonstrate that given some technological development the entire screen could be like that, and aside from that there are E-Ink screens in common use that can't refresh even such a small area that fast.

A technical video about eink, reprogramming the firmware etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbiO8EAsGw

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

#580

Post by socksy »

leavethebubble wrote: post #551
jknoepfler wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a more general note, I am still waiting for the world to fall for lisp in general. Gah, aren't we all? Watching John Carmack push Scheme for the Oculus Rift 2 [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydyztGZnbNs ] made me feel like something was right in the universe.

Why not just leave the lisp-bubble and admit it's a terrible type of language which is behind of ML languages in terms of productivity, safety and performance?

Good thing that there isn't an ML bubble then ;)
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