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Ideas for Computing

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Re: Ideas for Computing

#31

Post by sparkie »

Erwin wrote: post #22

This reminds of this: http://www.squidi.net/three/ which attempts to define a large number of computer game gameplay mechanics. Maybe we need more forwarding-reaching fiction in our world. More essays on computing futurology, grand envisioning of what we can achieve with software. Even ambitious prototypes of a new way to do something (like Lighttable) A lot of what I see are tooling details, lot of boring effort dup…

The problem is most modern computing is driven by the single question: "How can I monetize this idea?" It's only hobbyists and academics that really try to improve the state of computing, rather than having a primary focus on revenue. It's unfortunate that groundbreaking ideas are usually not the moneymakers, else we'd see innovation at a quicker rate.

Software patents are another hindrance to innovation too. Often the results of some publicly funded research are patented, and never actually made into end products, and the public has no rights to use the invention funded with their tax money. I'd bet a dozen or more of those hundred ideas are already covered in part by some patents that aren't used in any real products, but serve only to prevent anyone else from developing them.

I can't really see most people being so open about ideas as the author of this article precisely because innovative ideas people have will also come with the idea of monetizing it, with the belief that they need a patent to do so.

What's more of a shame, is a list like this 100 ideas, doesn't serve to prevent anyone from patenting an implementation of such idea, despite it already being published. Articles like these do not serve as 'prior art' when considering patent applications.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if anyone who developed an idea could patent it, but little guys, hobbyists and academics can't afford to without outside funding, whilst the wealthy corporations whose primary motive is profit can patent ideas by the dozen.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#32

Post by beech »

I'm working on something similar to #73. Web Of Trust Recommendations at http://reqqi.com/

I also keep a spreadsheet of ideas that I'm probably never going to work on, this might have inspired me to publish my own list.

Also, if anyone is interested, Reqqi is hiring

Re: Ideas for Computing

#33

Post by microcolonel »

A lot of these are already done, like command autocomplete.

Many show a lack of vision, why are we thinking about putting buttons and windows all over the place, adding complex nonstandard headers willy-nilly to our emails when we could be thinking about important things like indexing the vast power of existing UNIX tools in a voice-controlled environment?

Re: Ideas for Computing

#35

Post by jamii »

alexjeffrey wrote: post #26

some of these are really interesting ideas. I have one to add to the mix: go implement them! As technologists we all have unprecedented power to create change at our fingertips and I'd love it if you could come back with a list of great ideas, _with some of them implemented already_. [note] the biggest one for me is the "life engine" - I would happily pay you £50/month for this!

The Locker Project (http://lockerproject.org/) was a good stab at this. Seems to be abandoned now though (https://github.com/LockerProject/ - last update 9 months ago).

Re: Ideas for Computing

#36

Post by microcolonel »

sparkie wrote: post #31
Erwin wrote: post #22

This reminds of this: http://www.squidi.net/three/ which attempts to define a large number of computer game gameplay mechanics. Maybe we need more forwarding-reaching fiction in our world. More essays on computing futurology, grand envisioning of what we can achieve with software. Even ambitious prototypes of a new way to do something (like Lighttable) A lot of what I see are tooling details, lot of boring effort dup…

The problem is most modern computing is driven by the single question: "How can I monetize this idea?" It's only hobbyists and academics that really try to improve the state of computing, rather than having a primary focus on revenue. It's unfortunate that groundbreaking ideas are usually not the moneymakers, else we'd see innovation at a quicker rate. Software patents are another hindrance to innovation too. Often t…

And if we didn't have a government we wouldn't be funding: , useless research we're not allowed to use , the software patent system , massive amounts of child sexual abuse around the globe by supporting local regimes , welfare addiction , destruction of the economy which was solving poverty before we started "solve poverty" campaigns , wars with which we disagree , the wholesale destruction of personal privacy by people technologically incapable of protecting the data they gather , copyright fear mongering , government-steered news organizations

etc. etc. etc...

Re: Ideas for Computing

#37

Post by jamii »

microcolonel wrote: post #33

A lot of these are already done, like command autocomplete. Many show a lack of vision, why are we thinking about putting buttons and windows all over the place, adding complex nonstandard headers willy-nilly to our emails when we could be thinking about important things like indexing the vast power of existing UNIX tools in a voice-controlled environment?

Why voice controlled? I can type all day but speaking for an hour leaves me hoarse.

Re: Ideas for Computing

#38

Post by quasque »

The email metadata idea reminds me of EDIFACT, or at least what it was intended for - a standard electronic format for commercial transactions. It predates the WWW though, so looks quite 'ugly' by today's standard of using markup language to describe data. However I think it would be a good starting point for coming up with a broadly applicable data schema.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDIFACT

Re: Ideas for Computing

#39

Post by ville »

unimpressive wrote: post #19

I've thought of some of these independently. (It's good to see somebody else did too.) We could probably make more progress if we all kept a list like this publicly. Or even privately, with snippets shared where appropriate. I know if I went through some old journals I could scrounge up a decent list myself. One I had: Bash scripting in the style of hypercard. Hypercard was described to me as a system that had a set…

> A utility that allows you to create a GUI window from the command line.

In Gnome there is Zenity (https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/) that allows creating simple dialogs from command line.

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