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Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

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Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#181

Post by dharma1 »

whataretensors wrote: post #152
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See other responses for the markets it would serve. Use 3D modeling by hand pricing as a comp (Low end $10/model, average in the $50-100/model range, sky's the limit for super HQ stuff). Not sure what kind of datasets you're looking for. You'll see actual products to test with.

That makes sense. I think there's opportunity for generative ML to eventually help here. An open dataset of (images, description) -> 3d model would go a long way. Check out this paper on using GANs to generate voxel-based models: http://3dgan.csail.mit.edu/ I've been studying and working with GANs for about a year now. They are still very exciting, and I'd love to try to expand my codebase to new types of data. Addit…

I think generative models could work but both 2d GAN and 3D voxel GAN are very low res

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#182

Post by ForrestN »

nsm wrote: post #179

Immigration. Every time I change jobs as an H1-B employee, I've to fill in the same ridiculous data with every law firms weird interface. I wish the US Digital Services would focus on streamlining forms and having auto-import from all the data they already have about me (e.g. automatically translate I-94 records to how much time I actually spent in the US, infer my past I-797 records automatically, have a one time ed…

Unfortunately any assumptions built into an immigration business are likely to be upended soon. I'd wait at least a year before trying to solve this problem because the regulatory environment could break your resulting startup.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#183

Post by AndrewKemendo »

itsyogesh wrote: post #155
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #85

Rapid generation of high quality 3D models of existing objects. Process should be independent of object size eg. a coke can should use the same process as a car and process time should scale with object size. Think somewhere on the order of 10,000 models per day throughput. There's $BNs waiting for you. It's ridiculously hard.

I think Intel has been trying to do this for a while with their realsense technology and accompanying cameras. http://www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/architecture-and-techn...

Not really. I know some folks on the RS team and they don't really develop around applications, they are more focused on miniaturizing and making RS more available and lower power.

That said, some people have tried to use RS for this problem, but from what I've seen end up just using Kinects.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#184

Post by mevile »

scrollaway wrote: post #11

Content and patch distribution for video games: Data integrity, progressive downloads, file-level patching, compression, encryption, and platform/version branching. It's quite mind-boggling; nobody is really doing it on an industry-scale level. Every video game developer has their own way, all of which have their own problems. It is a very hard problem. Blizzard actually came up with a very good system, but it's not…

Have you looked at GoG Galaxy?

https://www.gog.com/galaxy

It's exactly what you want, but this service isn't poplar. It doesn't work because everyone is on Steam. Network effects. It's like when app.net tried to replace twitter. You can get mad at users, but users are using Steam & Origin and Battle.net and they don't care.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#185

Post by sidlls »

bdangubic wrote: post #138
seancoleman wrote: post #41

In real estate, developing with MLS data. - There are over 900 regional MLS providers each with different schemas. - You use RETS, a complicated, non web standards interface for downloading data. - MLS data is plagued with errors and denormalized data making queries difficult.

The entire Real-Estate industry is ripe for disruption. Exactly why are we paying 6% to "agents"? What are "agents" actually doing? 10+ years ago the need for "Real Estate Agents" was there as information was not readily accessible. Things like "what kind of area is this property in", "what are schools like" "what are prospects for this area 5 years down the road" and so on. All this information (and MUCH more) is cu…

The real estate industry is very heavily regulated and, worse, these regulations are extremely fragmented. Any disruption is going to have to deal with that.

Also, agents for basic residential purchases where the property is about as mundane as it gets provide very little value. However good agents will do proper diligence by inspecting the public records for the property. That part may be disruptable with software and an ambitious enough records maintenance effort. But good agents who do their jobs properly are well worth 6% (and, by the way, that 6% is frequently split two ways, so each agent gets 3%). Of course my bar for "good agent" is much higher than Joe Coldwell or Jane Keller-Williams. "Good" agents know local and state regulations very well and do diligence to inspect the public record and work closely with well qualified inspectors to get the best (lowest for buyer, highest for seller) price they can. Most agents, especially for "big box" brokers do basic humdrum contract paperwork and have a very basic approach to disclosure and negotiation and don't add much value. They're ripe for disruption.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#186

Post by 6stringmerc »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #162
6stringmerc wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so you mean like a big box that could fit XYZ items inside it and capture something like 10,000 per day? I mean, to me it's kind of hard to believe nobody's tried making a "conveyor belt" like process inside a closed system (a shipping container?) with the right optics and resolution to pull it off. Fidelity plus speed plus software consistency. Considering what I saw the gaming industry doing with static models…

Oh, so you mean like a big box that could fit XYZ items inside it and capture something like 10,000 per day? Maybe but I actually think that's the wrong approach. I mean, to me it's kind of hard to believe nobody's tried making a "conveyor belt" like process inside a closed system Yea they have - kinda. None of it works well or fast enough though. We put up a patent for one a year ago before I thought there was a bet…

Well yeah the human element is exactly what I'd want to eliminate as much as possible; I'm thinking of it more along the lines of what I've seen on How It's Made: Dream Cars in the sense that to get the various layers you're going to want - basic dimensions, surface features, coloration, reflective properties - aren't going to happen in one quick grab I don't think, and I get the feeling the process would work best in "absolute darkness" and isolated as much as possible for vibration.

Taking that 10k number - assuming disparate types of items that might be part of a series like "Bathroom" (toothbrush, hair brush, toilet brush, plunger) - in 24 hours that means cycling each item through in about 8 seconds. The only way I remotely see that possible is essentially having a robot hand pick up the item at the entry point, hold it for the capture sequence (perhaps have a custom-designed 'mount' that can allow for true 360 via a couple positions), and then drop it out the other side.

It's the scale part I'm wondering about, re: one size machine fits all doesn't seem to make sense. One machine for items under a certain dimension (e.g. "hand held") then another for items where the machine has to essentially have super-powers to pick up and rotate objects to complete the imaging process (e.g. a couch, a dresser, a motorcycle, etc). I think trying too hard to accommodate outliers ends up tainting the balance of operations a little? Just thinking out loud, really cool puzzle.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#187

Post by 8note »

howderek wrote: post #146
whataretensors wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly are the $BNs in this tech? Also, any datasets? I'd love to experiment.

You may be interested in the COIL dataset, it contains images of objects from many angles. http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/software/softlib/coil-100.p...

theres a method for generating 3d point clouds from images using SIFT already

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#188

Post by wefarrell »

bdangubic wrote: post #138
seancoleman wrote: post #41

In real estate, developing with MLS data. - There are over 900 regional MLS providers each with different schemas. - You use RETS, a complicated, non web standards interface for downloading data. - MLS data is plagued with errors and denormalized data making queries difficult.

The entire Real-Estate industry is ripe for disruption. Exactly why are we paying 6% to "agents"? What are "agents" actually doing? 10+ years ago the need for "Real Estate Agents" was there as information was not readily accessible. Things like "what kind of area is this property in", "what are schools like" "what are prospects for this area 5 years down the road" and so on. All this information (and MUCH more) is cu…

Agreed. There are many potential advertising opportunities to boot.

When people buy a new home and move they typically need to get new utilities, health and car insurance, doctors, dentists, furniture, appliances, etc... They need to decide where they're going to shop for groceries, which restaurants they want to explore, what activities they're going to get into.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#189

Post by miles_matthias »

fatdog wrote: post #180

Work in software, key problem in my industry is a lack of leadership.

We started StartupCTO.io as a way to address this. We saw the same lack of support for CS grads thrust into leadership, so we're doing something about it.

Re: Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?

#190

Post by DanBC »

contingencies wrote: post #13

Normally I live in China, and rarely eat western breakfast. Recently I returned to Australia to spend some Christmas time with my extended family. A few mornings ago, I put some real bread I cut from a sourdough loaf in a toaster. Due to its irregular size, when it popped it didn't pop out completely, resulting in a sort of "toaster is too hot to insert fingers, toast is too hot to hold, toast is ready, find metallic…

> Someone should really fix toasters.

They have. They're called dualit.

https://www.amazon.com/Dualit-20293-2-Slice-Toaster-Chrome/d...

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