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16 Things

a16z.com

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Re: 16 Things

#3

Post by fudged71 »

Considering how much is happening in the 3D printing space this year, I'm surprised that it isn't on this list. It is an enabler of IoT and Crowdfunding, drones, and even the "Sensorification of the Enterprise".

Cdixon even retweeted this recently: "Holograms are like print preview for 3D printing."

Also where is Drones on this list?

Re: 16 Things

#4

Post by jfernandez »

In the 'Online Video' section he calls out podcasts as an emerging/trending medium. I'd love to hear more about where people in HN community feel it's moving. Of course there's the obvious Serial momentum, and as a passionate consumer of podcasts I'd love to think through with you guys a little more where we think it'll go.

For example a YouTube-like podcast portal seems like a potential option (i.e. moving away from the need for dedicated apps/clients for a more mainstream audience), but I'm sure this isn't a novel idea.

Re: 16 Things

#8

Post by jayp »

blfr wrote: post #5

For instance, the cost of an endpoint CPU and memory is a 1000x cheaper than the cost of CPU and memory in the server. [1] What do they mean? How was that calculated? It sounds completely wrong. [1] http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/cloud-client-computing/

My guess:

Not in a law-of-physics point of view, but I suppose, it is from the perspective of the entity that pays for the server.

If you can push the computation to the end point, and simply spend fewer resources (let's say, 1000x fewer resources) to coordinate the task, then, behold 1000x cost reduction!

Re: 16 Things

#9

Post by qeorge »

blfr wrote: post #5

For instance, the cost of an endpoint CPU and memory is a 1000x cheaper than the cost of CPU and memory in the server. [1] What do they mean? How was that calculated? It sounds completely wrong. [1] http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/cloud-client-computing/

From later in the post: "The key is nobody has to cool these devices, so it’s almost like free computing at the endpoint."

Also, you don't have to buy it! (the user bought their phone/computer and pays for the power)

I agree its a bit handwavy. I suppose the remaining cost is the cost of transmitting more data?

But regardless, it is a good point - we are absolutely crazy to not be taking advantage of all the free computing and power that our users have purchased for us to use (and are paying the costs up upgrades and maintenance). I've felt this way for a while (especially when OnLive came out), but it seems that servers have so far been cheap enough that its been cheaper to buy more servers than spend valuable engineering time making your app distributed.

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