Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#1

Post by scottlilly » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

Back in the 1980s I used to read Omni magazine. In the 90s, it was magazines like Wired, Mondo 2000, and Boing Boing. These all presented views of the future that I found interesting and (mostly) hopeful - even if a good percentage of their articles had no basis in reality.

Today, they're all gone or nothing like what they used to be.

What magazines, blogs, podcast, etc. do you use to discover possible positive future technologies?

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#2

Post by f0e4c2f7 » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

HN, Indie Hackers Podcast, All-in podcast, Lex Friedman podcast, TikTok, and conversations with people I meet in virtual reality.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#3

Post by dusted » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

It feels like very few new things come out.. (I'm ignoring anything "as a service" and anything that requires an Internet connection).

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#4

Post by ben30 » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

https://hackaday.com/ and the podcast that goes with it.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#5

Post by omarhaneef » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

Tech has gone mainstream so these stories are everywhere now. The Nytimes, WSJ, Washington Post all have tech sections and if you don’t read large national “papers”, you read about them at whatever news aggregator you have.

This is no longer niche news but part of everybody’s daily information diet.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#6

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

dusted wrote: post #3

It feels like very few new things come out.. (I'm ignoring anything "as a service" and anything that requires an Internet connection).

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#7

Post by reportingsjr » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

IEEE Spectrum is still fairly decent.

MIT Technology Review is ok, it never grabs me and makes me want to read it frequently though.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#8

Post by kiwiThrowAway2 » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

Reareading science fiction, Vurt - Jeff Noon, Snow Crash Etc...

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#9

Post by jimthom » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

dusted wrote: post #3

It feels like very few new things come out.. (I'm ignoring anything "as a service" and anything that requires an Internet connection).

I totally agree with this one as it becomes totally useless once there's no internet connection.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find weird and wonderful future tech nowadays?

#10

Post by themodelplumber » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

Visions of the future is really important here. That's kind of lost prominence in tech writing these days. (Did we all decide we had a big enough dose of the future for now? There's a lot of existing tech that's mind-blowing, and still hard to catch up with, I guess)

I'd probably start with Isaac Arthur.