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Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

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501–510 of 512 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#501

Satellite connectivity for mobile devices. I think it's all still pretty immature, but the potential for both good and bad is incredible. https://www.emergingtechbrew.com/stories/2023/01/12/some-and...

T-Mobile is doing this with SpaceX for current devices, no special hardware needed. Enough bandwidth to text and potentially voice calls anywhere with satellite coverage and line of sight to sky (also in your pocket still gets reception apparently).

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah this one... This really disturbs me. I can't shake the feeling that it might be conscious somehow; trapped, enslaved and tortured like some kind of Black Mirror episode.

Probably not a lot. Babies when they're born have billions of neurons but believe me, there isn't much going on yet :)

That smile is so creepy.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#503
post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo and Cruise have published their known operating areas. It's tiny and only during certain times of day (middle of the night). Tesla operates nearly everywhere. The scale of what's happening isn't even comparable.

Estimates from users of FSD are ~5 miles between disengagements. https://sites.google.com/view/fsdbetacommunitytracker/home?p... Even the best self reported areas are less than 100 miles between disengagement. Waymo and Cruise are at around 30,000 miles between disengagement. Tesla has released nothing .

Tesla has FSD released on literally every car in the US that has purchased it. Hundreds of thousands of cars.

No one serious in the self driving space is using disengagements to pick winners or leaders on the path to commercialization. There is no standard about what qualifies as a disengagement and companies will interpret and report their disengagements differently. Those interpretations also change over time, making it even more difficult to actually understand how a company has progressed in its technology.

And again you're missing the point. Waymo/Cruise are operating in an extremely different and much more narrow context than Tesla's FSD. Let's go put Waymo on a random road in a random city and see how it fares compared to Tesla FSD. I guarantee it will be tremendously worse and no one who knows anything about the space would argue otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#504
post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Estimates from users of FSD are ~5 miles between disengagements. https://sites.google.com/view/fsdbetacommunitytracker/home?p... Even the best self reported areas are less than 100 miles between disengagement. Waymo and Cruise are at around 30,000 miles between disengagement. Tesla has released nothing .

Tesla has FSD released on literally every car in the US that has purchased it. Hundreds of thousands of cars. No one serious in the self driving space is using disengagements to pick winners or leaders on the path to commercialization. There is no standard about what qualifies as a disengagement and companies will interpret and report their disengagements differently. Those interpretations also change over time, maki…

Hundreds of thousands of 5 mile jaunts.

Also, why is Tesla so adamant about how many accidents occured simply with FSD disabled? Shouldn't we know how long prior to the accident FSD was engaged? I mean, hitting the brakes in panic only technically makes it "not FSD".

I'd be happy if you showed me any reported data, self or Tesla, of 30k miles before disengagement with FSD. Even within one order of magnitude instead of two.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#505
post #336

I've had the good fortune to see people use the balance belt, a belt that you can wear if you have bilateral vistibular loss. The tech is simple, but seeing someone go from not being able to walk without leaning against everything to walking as if nothing is wrong - within 30 minutes - felt like a miracle. The haptic feedback is processed in a very old part of the brain, which makes learning to process and use it fas…

That looks like an interesting device, do you know if it available in the US? I had a friend lose some of his balance due to a tumor. He said he could do surprisingly well with his eyes, probably due to a lifetime of climbing, skiing, etc but others I know do not have that advantage.

I am pretty sure some have been sold to the US.

I suggest reading https://balancebelt.net/en/patients/ and using the "I want to try" button to fill in a contact form.

It's a small business, so I expect they'll be in touch shortly after that. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#506
post #336

I've had the good fortune to see people use the balance belt, a belt that you can wear if you have bilateral vistibular loss. The tech is simple, but seeing someone go from not being able to walk without leaning against everything to walking as if nothing is wrong - within 30 minutes - felt like a miracle. The haptic feedback is processed in a very old part of the brain, which makes learning to process and use it fas…

This reminds me about reading on similar device which when worn provides haptic feedback indicating North. The intention is to give the wearer an instinctive sense of North which remains even after stopping to wear the device. Do you by any chance have any info on this?

Closest thing I know of is this

https://elitacwearables.com/projects/mission-navigation-belt...

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#507
post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has FSD released on literally every car in the US that has purchased it. Hundreds of thousands of cars. No one serious in the self driving space is using disengagements to pick winners or leaders on the path to commercialization. There is no standard about what qualifies as a disengagement and companies will interpret and report their disengagements differently. Those interpretations also change over time, maki…

Hundreds of thousands of 5 mile jaunts. Also, why is Tesla so adamant about how many accidents occured simply with FSD disabled? Shouldn't we know how long prior to the accident FSD was engaged? I mean, hitting the brakes in panic only technically makes it "not FSD". I'd be happy if you showed me any reported data, self or Tesla, of 30k miles before disengagement with FSD. Even within one order of magnitude instead o…

Show me data of Waymo or Cruise doing 30k miles before disengagement in the 99% of the country where they don't operate. I guarantee their stats are worse anywhere outside their carefully chosen, extremely narrow operating areas.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#508
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of thousands of 5 mile jaunts. Also, why is Tesla so adamant about how many accidents occured simply with FSD disabled? Shouldn't we know how long prior to the accident FSD was engaged? I mean, hitting the brakes in panic only technically makes it "not FSD". I'd be happy if you showed me any reported data, self or Tesla, of 30k miles before disengagement with FSD. Even within one order of magnitude instead o…

Show me data of Waymo or Cruise doing 30k miles before disengagement in the 99% of the country where they don't operate. I guarantee their stats are worse anywhere outside their carefully chosen, extremely narrow operating areas.

If there was a single operating area that Tesla could do as well, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. They are not only silent. They are trying to argue to the state of California that they are not testing self driving capabilities past level 2. Have a great day.

Edit: one more thing ... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#509
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me data of Waymo or Cruise doing 30k miles before disengagement in the 99% of the country where they don't operate. I guarantee their stats are worse anywhere outside their carefully chosen, extremely narrow operating areas.

If there was a single operating area that Tesla could do as well, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. They are not only silent. They are trying to argue to the state of California that they are not testing self driving capabilities past level 2. Have a great day. Edit: one more thing ... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

Telsa has no reason to hyper focus on a few square miles in some random city and only in the middle of the night. You too.

Re: Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?

#510
Computers implemented in other computers.

Specifically:

Minecraft running in Minecraft https://youtu.be/-BP7DhHTU-I

or

Game of Life running in Game of Life https://youtu.be/xP5-iIeKXE8

Bonus: Digital clock implemented in Game of Life https://youtu.be/3NDAZ5g4EuU

Surreal because it makes it apparent that our universe could really be emergent behavior from a simple set of rules.

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