Ask HN: What are some “10x” *hardware* product innovations you have experienced? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#11

Post by nospy4312 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 5:44 AM UTC

Powerful 22-core, 18-core server-grade systems with fully open firmware and hardware, fully open BMC, with PCIe 4.0, DDR4 memory with ECC and other modern features [1]. They are FSF RYF (Respects Your Freedom) certified [2]. Truly FOSS hardware. Quite affordable too. I think not many have heard of it. They have fully FOSS desktop processors too (4-core, 8-core).

[1] https://www.raptorcs.com/

[2] https://ryf.fsf.org/vendors/raptor

More info:

[3] https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Main_Page

[4] https://www.talospace.com/

[5] #talos-workstation on IRC, where people using these systems daily hangout. Accessible through the Element Matrix app IRC bridge too.

Now idk whether that's innovation, but it's a big thing IMO. AMD, Intel and ARM have proprietary bits in them that can potentially spy on your entire system (AMD Platform Security Processor, Intel Management Engine)

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#12

Post by hkarthik » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 6:28 AM UTC

Electric assist bikes. I don't have one yet but I've rented them in SF before. They make biking in a hilly city a far more enjoyable experience. If the cost falls enough to be on part with a normal bike in a few years, I suspect everyone will start riding them and cars will be less prevalent for short trips.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#13

Post by the_only_law » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

schappim wrote: post #6

WebUSB Postage Label Printer and WebUSB Postage Scales[1]: - No OS based printer queue to get gummed up - Super-fast (just ZPL printer commands being sent down the wire) - One-click to create a postage label - Automatic label printing when a new order comes in (Websocket + WebUSB) We used to create labels by copying and pasting between Shopify and Australia Post. This hardware saves us ~4min per parcel. [1] https://c…

WebUSB in general was crazy to me, then I found out there was a WebHID and serial port API available and suddenly something I was looking at making a kernel driver for could be a web app???

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#14

Post by beforeolives » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 7:57 AM UTC

Moving from a 13 inch laptop to 2 large monitors. You don't realise how much the screen space affects the way you think.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#15

Post by dividead » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

my first mp3 player (2gb) after audio CDs - more songs - more playtime on a single AA battery - smaller size

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#16

Post by h2odragon » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

Voodoo 1 graphics. A whole separate card, for one game? wtf is "OpenGL"? ... then sit down in a Quake deathmatch for a second and its "I never realized how much i needed this until i saw it"

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#17

Post by moistbar » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

radley wrote: post #7

aksss wrote: post #2

optical mice - anyone remember cleaning mouse balls? led lighting

+1 the Logitech MX Master mouse with lots of buttons

And TWO scroll wheels!

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#18

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

SSD is the obvious one.

Robot things. Robot mop/vac and robot pool cleaner.

iPhone. My first was the 3GS.

The standard IBM PC form factor thing. Might have started with 286 processors in 90s?

Drones

Solar cells becoming economical enough to bolt onto your house

Dyson vs. traditional vacuum cleaners at the time (the competition weren’t interested in losing their bag selling biz)

Skis apparently used to be heavy and hard to ski in but now they are all easier but the technique changed.

How damn cheap consumer products are. I remember when owning a kitchen appliance was a big thing. Now we have too many!

Possibly the M1 processor but I’m not an apple “non phone computer” person so not sure.

GPS getting into phones, killing the sat nav market.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#19

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

__d wrote: post #5

My first computer had a 2MHz CPU; my current has roughly 4GHz (2000x faster). My first computer had an 8 bit CPU; my current has 64 bits (8x, so ... could try harder :-) My first computer had a single core; my current has 16 cores (so 16x). My first computer had 32KB RAM; my current has 32GB RAM (so, 1,000,000x). My first computer with a hard drive had 30MB; my current has 32TB (so, roughly 1,000,000x) My first compu…

I think the 10x means an immediate 10x over the competition rather than moores law doing its thing. For example the apple m1 might be this (I’m not an expert). 10x might mean in terms of perceived value not just raw metrics. The idea is that you kill the competitor immediately because it’s so good. It’s like why get a taxi when Uber is cheaper, comes quicker, doesn’t rip you off by going the long way and has an app (taxi companies had to catch up on the app part). Subjectively that’s 10x taxis!

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” hardware product innovations you have experienced?

#20

Post by quickthrower2 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 8:35 PM UTC

hkarthik wrote: post #12

Electric assist bikes. I don't have one yet but I've rented them in SF before. They make biking in a hilly city a far more enjoyable experience. If the cost falls enough to be on part with a normal bike in a few years, I suspect everyone will start riding them and cars will be less prevalent for short trips.

I rented one once and I suspect the electric was just compensating for the bike weight (unliftable so I’m guessing 40kg or more!) so I can’t imagine hoe good they are on a lighter bike.