from Hacker News

Ask HN: What do you think will be “the next big thing”?

by Biba89 on 7/26/20, 8:14 PM with 47 comments

I found some interesting articles on this topic, but HN always gave me great insights regarding technology and business.

I would like to hear your opinion about the potential next big thing(s).

  • by invalidOrTaken on 7/27/20, 2:19 AM

    Children---the conceiving, raising, and educating of.

    Smart people aren't having kids. Many of those who do, pass off their care to strangers or government schools. When they get out of high school, we're not sure what to do with them---higher education is riddled with problems, but so is entry-level hiring.

    Will we have self-driving cars in 2038? Because we will have 18-yr-olds.

  • by ukdeveloper on 7/27/20, 12:22 AM

    Decentralized peer to peer internet, powered by a network of cell phones and other devices. For this to work it likely needs to use middle-out compression.

  • by nefitty on 7/27/20, 2:10 AM

    I think there is a big shift toward “self-improvement” tech. The first big wave has been nootropics, although the hype around that stuff has subsided it seems. There are researchers still actively looking at ways to improve standard bearers such as modafinil.

    A second push toward wearable devices is probably coming. I think Snapchat’s glasses probably cracked some of the stigma around that, at least for younger millennials. We won’t see the same type of stigma that Google Glass had, especially once Apple gets in the game. This will necessitate new conversations around privacy in the public space, although this time around the conversation will be led by people who might not necessarily have grown up expecting that luxury anyway.

    Another big movement is Neuralink and similar physical brain enhancement. The degree to which these could change an individual’s lived experience is probably hard to imagine. I somewhat expect something like having a Dropbox-memory with Wikipedia-levels of factual knowledge. The ability to synthesize and digest this amount of data will become the new ground on which individuals differentiate themselves. Knowledge and social management applications will become essential, ie things similar to Roam or CRM-style apps for your social life.

    I am curious about how the near future will impact pop culture. Maybe our tech will be able to sense what music we want to listen to in the moment? Maybe algorithms will start proactively incorporating the preferences of groups of people, instead of individuals, to make suggestions? Will music and film become shorter to fit into tinier and tinier slices of attention?

    For what it’s worth, futurism is one of my passions. I predicted services like Stadia 6 years ago. I’m still a little salty about how badly it has turned out...

  • by verdverm on 7/26/20, 9:38 PM

    Augmented Reality, which is really the merging of our physical and digital worlds

    Bioengineering / Genetics, this will probably change the way we make many materials in addition to health applications. Nano materials are pretty interesting too

    Something to deal with a hyper-connected world and all the issues therein. This is probably about rule making. "Rules for a Flat World" is a good read on how humans have made and used rules and laws.

    I hope for something in the social network space akin to the FHIR standard in healthcare in US. This could enable the separation of the network from it's presentation and thus (fingers crossed) encourage competition.

    Pessimistically, the second cold war

  • by yen223 on 7/27/20, 1:16 AM

    Smart glasses.

    Apple is rumoured to be announcing their version of the Google Glass some time this year. Their recent efforts around augmented reality seems to confirm that. If the rumour is true, and if it succeeds, then it will be interesting times for wearable tech.

  • by ArtWomb on 7/26/20, 8:43 PM

    PCoIP. Zero clients. Workflows for teams in virtual environments. It's analogous to netflix, zoom, and stadia. But for distributed remote-first enterprises.

    Imagine a big budget Hollywood movie production, shooting in locations around the world, with post-production all working from a single data source, editing in a single multiplexed workstation.

  • by dakiol on 7/26/20, 10:26 PM

    Microrobots. Each robot the size of a grain of salt; disposable (and hence, cheap). They'll be able to: clean your teeth (goodbye toothbrush), cut your hair (you'll have exactly the haircut you want), cut your nails, shave your beard. Clean your face, your ears.

    Probably more usages, but all of them related to human hygiene. I just can't imagine a future with: toiler papers, toothbrushes, nail clippers, hair scissors...

  • by Jugurtha on 7/27/20, 12:46 AM

    Git for genes.

    Revert, bisect, blame, cherry-pick, merge, rebase, commit. On genes.

    Of course, there could be porcelain on that plumbing. You could point at a trait, like a tumor, and revert it. Remission will last a second or so.

    CI/CD for humans, with integration tests and unit tests updated glibally. If there's mutation and we know that mutation isn't good, it doesn't get merged.

  • by caryd on 7/26/20, 8:16 PM

    A free speech service that is serverless and unable to be shut down. That will truly give power to individual people.

  • by thedevindevops on 7/27/20, 9:46 AM

    Smart(er) Cities - publicly available APIs for each city providing real-time access to what's happening where, from traffic numbers to park occupancy, requests for planning permission to refuse collection times for the area, cities produce tons of data and harnessing it would be incredible.

  • by quickthrower2 on 7/27/20, 10:05 AM

    Cryptocurrency might still have its day.

  • by alexmingoia on 7/27/20, 3:22 AM

    Biotech (gene therapy).

  • by helph67 on 7/26/20, 11:47 PM

    Physical alteration of your finger prints instead of tattoos. Could be used for commercial gain?

  • by giantg2 on 7/27/20, 2:29 AM

    I'm surprised nobody has said quantum computing.

  • by kk58 on 7/27/20, 12:53 AM

    AI + science leading to acceleration of discoveries

  • by decasteve on 7/27/20, 11:46 AM

    Flying cars. It’s always flying cars.

  • by cblconfederate on 7/27/20, 1:18 PM

    OnlyFans

  • by o1lab on 7/26/20, 8:58 PM

    XgeneCloud: writing APIs will never be simpler.

    With just one command you can generate REST/Graphql on 5 different types of databases instantly.

    https://github.com/xgenecloud/xgenecloud/

    Has GUI for dB design and API debugging.

    And APIs generated can be deployed as even AWS lambda function too.

    And this is our MVP :)

    Disclaimer: I'm the founder.