from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are the most interesting things in tech lately?

by throwawaygo on 8/2/20, 11:59 PM with 41 comments

Second internet? Bio-tech? New cryptographies?

What are the most interesting things in tech you've seen lately?

  • by chrisco255 on 8/3/20, 3:53 AM

    Decentralized Finance on Ethereum. Blockchain always gets snarky comments on HN, but it is a rapidly evolving space. Whereas the 2017 bubble was built on token ICOs and hype, what I'm seeing now is advanced financial products including decentralized money markets for car loans (https://defimoneymarket.com/) and fractional investments in tokenized real estate (https://realt.co/). Stablecoins (tokens that trend towards the value of $1 USD) have also taken off in a big way, with Dai being one of the biggest decentralized examples (https://makerdao.com/en/). Lending platforms such as Aave (https://aave.com/) have created markets for various tokens, including stable coins, paying out variable interest on deposits.

    User-friendly apps have cropped up that enable people to easily save and invest their stable coins and earn interest, such as Argent (https://www.argent.xyz/). People are creating Social investment strategies around tokens and pooling their funds together on TokenSets (https://www.tokensets.com/), these are basically social ETFs.

    There are no-loss lotteries that simply invest the pool of funds to earn interest and then one lucky staker wins the interest (https://www.pooltogether.com/). Decentralized funding of open-source Web3 projects (https://gitcoin.co/).

    I can really go on and on, I'm not even covering some of the developments with Non-Fungible Tokens, gaming, governance, etc.

    Here are a couple newsletters I recommend for following the space: https://thedefiant.substack.com/ https://bankless.substack.com/

  • by shaneapen on 8/3/20, 3:12 AM

    GPT-3 is an interesting mention. What people makes out of it is the coolest part. Check out https://twitter.com/jsngr/status/1284511080715362304

  • by totetsu on 8/3/20, 5:42 AM

    smart algorithms for stratospheric balloon navigation. https://medium.com/loon-for-all/1-million-hours-of-stratosph...

  • by nieksand on 8/3/20, 6:57 AM

    SpaceX Starlink.

    We already have low latency, high bandwidth internet available in big urban areas. Starlink offers a real solution for the rest of the world (rural communities, boats, vacation homes, isolated industrial facilities, etc).

    The era of being outside of internet coverage is coming to a close.

  • by yen223 on 8/3/20, 7:38 AM

    Apple's push towards ARM in their desktop line. Apple appears to have both the right incentives and a solid plan to make the transition succeed, unlike Microsoft's half-hearted attempt at Windows on ARM.

    ARM on the desktop would be one of the biggest things to happen in the desktop space, and it will be interesting to see if Apple succeeds with it, and if PC manufacturers follow suit as a result.

  • by AlchemistCamp on 8/3/20, 8:14 AM

    I've been hearing a lot about AI and blockchain but I'm more interested in VR.

    If the hardware were just a bit better, I could see it completely transforming education.

  • by ZinnZirconium on 8/3/20, 2:23 AM

    The social trend to replace technology with marketing. The banishment of nerds from technical fields. The obsession with status and notoriety and money to the complete exclusion of intellectual curiosity.

  • by luckycharms810 on 8/3/20, 9:22 AM

    A few years ago I heard “HBO is trying to become Netflix before Netflix becomes HBO”

    Today the news is trying to become Facebook before Facebook becomes the news.

  • by nurettin on 8/3/20, 12:01 PM

    > What are the most interesting things in tech you've seen lately?

    Same old, same old. People revisiting old tech (linear algebra, newton-rhapson, euclidean graph theory, bfs etc etc.) and rediscovering its value are getting rich with new and interesting projects, people chasing new tech pipe dreams getting scammed or scamming others. The scene hasn't changed much recently.

  • by newguy1234 on 8/3/20, 8:06 AM

    The push by people who identify as "conservative" to move to unconventional social media platforms. Parler being used to replace twitter. BitChute being used to replace Youtube. Gab being used to replace Facebook and so on. Seems to have gained more mainstream acceptance to move.

  • by ve55 on 8/3/20, 4:15 AM

    AI progress including GPT-3, Biotech progress including anything related to solving aging and curing diseases, decentralization progress including everything from finance to chat to social media

  • by fiftyacorn on 8/3/20, 3:43 PM

    I find indoor cycling platforms like zwift interesting, and how the data can help people train

  • by praelud on 8/3/20, 7:45 AM

    Social media turning into ads.

  • by scott31 on 8/3/20, 10:39 AM

    Deno

  • by aaron695 on 8/3/20, 4:00 AM

    OSINT

  • by p1esk on 8/3/20, 9:51 AM

    GPT-4