The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010) • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by rmason » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

Recently watched George Hotz on video announce his latest update for Comma.ai. To sign up for their optional prime(?) monthly subscription account you've got to give them your GitHub account.

Gave a friend anxious to try self-driving a link. He then asks me what is GitHub? I explain it and he tells me, what is this some sort of tech toy? I could tell that he began to lose interest.

I well remember talking to people about getting on the Internet in 1994 and as soon as they found out they'd have to install a tcp/ip stack on Windows 3.1 they too soon lost interest.

I believe against all odds that Comma.ai just might be one of the eventual winners in the self driving market. Which is crazy because they're battling people who've invested billions of dollars. By coincidence the partner who brought Comma.ai to Andreesen Horowitz is Chris Dixon! Coincidence?

Personally I'm just waiting for them to add support for Ford.

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

#152

Post by anovikov » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:28 AM UTC

I can't see how Skype was different in 2010 vs 2003. I mean, it provided facility for perfect clarity voice calls over the Internet right away and that never changed (arguably, clarity of a Skype voice call is worse now than it used to be). And it perfectly worked over then-day Internet connections. I had a mediocre quality dial-up in 2003 which was already long in the past for most developed countries, and i used Skype a lot, it worked OK - and when i moved onto 112kbps dedicated line - also considered slowish by developed countries' standards of the day - and Skype calls were literally perfectly clear all the time, every time. Much better than over a landline phone, if you had a headset.

So while agreeing with the rest of the article, Skype sounds like a wrong example. It was a total replacement for phone calls from day one. I never made, and maybe received only about 10, calls to/from my U.S. customers since getting on Skype, PSTN immediately lost me as a long-distance client.

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

#153

Post by pcnix » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

DannyB2 wrote: post #53

cookingrobot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this test, is Lego the next big thing?

The real test, I think, is something that has genuinely useful applications to anyone with a little bit of vision. Big entrenched players are unable to see the next big thing, because they see the world through the glasses of their successful business. Microsoft for example almost missed the internet, and suddenly realized it in 1995. I believe Bill Gates was quoted as saying it was just a fad. The funny thing is tha…

The idea that you speak of, about bug entrenched companies not being able to see new things coming - it's the central theme of The Innovator's Dilemma. I highly recommend that book if you wish to read about this further.

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

#154

Post by hanniabu » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #97

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Lego blocks were bigger and all building codes and regulations were removed and zoning could be eliminated, then yes absolutely legos would be the next big thing that could upend the entire multi trillion dollar housing market. Imagine the enormous societal wealth creation, if anyone could build a house with the same ease (and lack of regulations) of building a website. of course, these hypothetical legos would ne…

Brikawood homes https://www.simplemost.com/houses-made-wooden-lego-like-bric... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ierqMW_FxfE

Do those need siding or is that an acceptable external wall? Would be nice if these structures were widely allowed, but I have a feeling that it would conflict with many building codes. That sawdust wall filler also looks like a fire hazard. Look like it'd be good fun building though!

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

#155

Post by hyperpallium » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:45 AM UTC

Most toys remain toys...

I really like Clay Christenen's ideas, but he dismissed the greatest recent disruption (smartphones) as "sustaining"... His theories are not predictive.

What actual toys are there? Especially new ones. def toy: fun/enjoyable/popular but useless.

video games (e.g. minecraft, pubg), social media (stackexchange, reddit, meme-makers), scooters, fidget spinners, drones, 3D printers, face swaps, shadertoy

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

#156

Post by flukus » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:53 AM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #73

guptaneil wrote: post #67

If you're hung up on the word "toy," another way of phrasing this is the next big thing will look like just a hobby to most people. Looking forward, smart homes and 3D printing are 2 industries that fall in this bucket. Both feel like toys to the majority of the market right now, but have the potential to completely change how we live. 3D printing - low-cost manufacturing has completely revolutionized what's possible…

Before smart homes are more than just a toy, they need to have functionality that is actually time saving. I've messed with smart home stuff and so far the only thing that has been useful beyond being a toy is our robot vacuum, which I'm not sure is really classified as a smart home thing. As someone that lives in California, something that could be an actual $$ and time saver rather than just a toy is if I could hav…

> they need to have functionality that is actually time saving.

Robot vacuums didn't achieve this for me, I'd have to spend more time removing "clutter" from the floor than I would vacuuming and half the time it'd get stuck on something anyway. Some of that clutter was me being messy, but some of it was things I liked to keep handy under the couch. As advanced as they are, they're still stupid machines that don't properly adapt to humans.

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

#157

Post by bcrosby95 » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:55 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #138

bcrosby95 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a smart device. But to me a smart home has a central system that can monitor a variety of inputs and, in response, control a set of things to accomplish some goal. We have a robot vacuum and robot mopper. Me going over and pressing the robot vacuum button, then once its done, placing the robot mopper in position and pressing the start button, is using smart devices but isn't a smart home. If I can tel…

A vacuum is really easy to use; what's a real pain is cleaning the vacuum cleaner . When are they going to automate that ?

It might not sound like a lot, but it saves us 15-20 minutes of cleaning per day. We have 3 kids and get about 1-2 hours of free time per night. So its 12-33% more time to spend doing whatever we want rather than cleaning the house.

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

#158

Post by hanniabu » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 6:09 AM UTC

tonyarkles wrote: post #93

grumpy8 wrote: post #42

I have a question for those who were there at the very beginning of the internet. I heard that many were skeptical about both personal computers and the internet.. did it feel the same as it does right now with crypto-currency/quantum-computing? I wasn't there, but on my side, it feels like people were able to use internet right from the beginning, whereas there's a bigger leap to using crypto/quantum. Is it just tha…

Your question tickled something really interesting for me. Here's a brief timeline from my own life: 1991 - I am 8 years old and am learning to program BASIC on a Vic-20 1992 - My family gets an XT-class machine (640kB of RAM!) 1993 - NCSA Mosaic is released. 1994 - An Internet Cafe opens in my small town of 35,000. Using library books, I manage to find cool software to download onto 5 1/4" floppies and bring home. 1…

It allows for permissionless systems, decentralized organizations, built in incentive models, built in authorization systems, trustless smart contracts.....I'd say it's a pretty huge leap. The issue is that everyone always just talks about it being a currency and the news makes a joke about it similar to what was done with the internet early on.

The other thing is that governments are greatly hindering growth. Enterprises really want to get involved but are forced to take it slow and be careful of all their actions for fear of legal reprocussions. Of course governments aren't happy and don't want to support it because it puts government currency at risk, as noted by US representatives.

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

#159

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

rmason wrote: post #151

Recently watched George Hotz on video announce his latest update for Comma.ai. To sign up for their optional prime(?) monthly subscription account you've got to give them your GitHub account. Gave a friend anxious to try self-driving a link. He then asks me what is GitHub? I explain it and he tells me, what is this some sort of tech toy? I could tell that he began to lose interest. I well remember talking to people a…

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by blihp » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 6:38 AM UTC

iamwil wrote: post #117

guptaneil wrote: post #67

If you're hung up on the word "toy," another way of phrasing this is the next big thing will look like just a hobby to most people. Looking forward, smart homes and 3D printing are 2 industries that fall in this bucket. Both feel like toys to the majority of the market right now, but have the potential to completely change how we live. 3D printing - low-cost manufacturing has completely revolutionized what's possible…

I was working on software in the 3D printing space back in 2012, and I too thought it was going to be something big that looked like a toy. However, I got out once I realized that speed of prints mattered a lot of consumers. And the current methods of consumer 3D printers were FDM (fused deposition modeling) and Stereolithography, which both had asymptotic limitation on how fast you can get a print to go. For FDM, th…

It's far too early for most consumers... despite what the promoters claimed.[1] Most of the same issues existed with paper printers in the 80's: they could be fiddly, slow, noisy, power hungry, prone to jam and messy. If you had to print something too much longer than a book report, you had to keep your eyes on it while it printed and cross your fingers. There was no Moore's law for paper printers, just years of incremental improvements in the respective technologies and mechanisms. In time, the problems will get solved and then we'll see how big the consumer market for them is or isn't.

[1] Names like 'Replicator' conjuring visions of Star Trek when the thing most printers were able to produce were variants of piles of expensive plastic spaghetti when prints go wrong.