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The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)

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Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)

#23

Post by airocker »

playpause wrote: post #19
airocker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber/Lyft/AirBnb were considered toys when they began. It may be that nowadays the transition from toy to big company is faster.

I don't remember anyone saying Uber/Lyft/Airbnb were toys when they began. Some might have thought them unlikely to succeed, but that's not the same thing as being a toy.

I do not think we are referring to Toy's literal meaning here. IMO, Toy here means something insignificant that a few people/small market uses.

Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)

#25

Post by OnlineGladiator »

Ancalagon wrote: post #17
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #15

This was the approach Anki (which recently shut down) took for robotics. I actually had a similar idea, but whenever I went to the drawing board to make robot toys I could never make anything that was both fun and affordable - using videogames as a benchmark it basically always lost. I think Anki did as close to an admirable job as you could at trying to sell robotic toys while developing more utilitarian robots (the…

I actually think AR could still be the next big thing, once the integration becomes seamless and the peripheral technology doesn't look ridiculous

I'd have to try it. The question is what's the killer app? VR essentially has 3 things going for it after becoming somewhat mature - Google Earth, Beat Saber, and porn. All are considered better in VR, but none are really "omg VR is the future!" level of amazing (to be fair I haven't tried the porn yet so maybe I don't realize how much I'm missing out).

The notion of having a HUD for my eyes everywhere I go sounds neat at first, until I think about it a bit more and it just seems like sensory overload. I can always just pull out my phone if there's something I want to know, and that thing is already pretty invasive when it comes to my daily living - do I really need something more than that?

When it happens, we'll know. The iPhone was famously expected to be such a failure that Verizon refused to be a carrier. Microsoft also joked about Apple being able to make a smart phone. Blackberry felt the same way. The only company that took them seriously was Google with Android.

Out of curiosity, what is it you think AR will revolutionize? What do you consider the killer app?

Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)

#26

Post by viach »

AznHisoka wrote: post #18
viach wrote: post #11

Imo if a statement about the future doesn't contain word "probably" - it is probably wrong.

probably.. suppose... it seems to me.. I hate it when people try and hedge their opinions.

You are right. I could re-phrase my comment - all statements about the future which don't contain notion of probability are pure gambling.

Re: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)

#27

Post by mywittyname »

appleshore wrote: post #6

Here’s a more full account of the Western Union and Bell settlement on patent infringement- http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/bell-telephone--wes... I’m also generally skeptical of revisionist narratives. People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predi…

> People often say no one saw X coming, no one saw apps on a phone or a screen with buttons etc etc. But it seems hundreds or thousands of writers, designers, futurists, failed technologists and so on did predict these things.

Often technologies are available long before they ever catch on with the mainstream. There were several PDAs sold in the 90s, and at least one had a built-in telephone. The Buick Reatta had a touch screen center stack in the late 1980s.

Technology adoption is weird. There needs to be the perfect storm of integration, marketing, and (for lack of a better term) zeitgeist to really make something mainstream. And even with all those things, it still takes YEARS to really get there. Think about how long techies were downloading TV shows/movies before streaming really took off -- Windows Media Center came out in 2002! That's a full six years before Netflix started its streaming service, which itself took several years to take off.

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