
Ask HN: What is the next hype (after ML)? - tw1010
Everywhere I look I see stories of ML classes filled to the brim. To some this is an indication of an ML goldrush. But to me it&#x27;s a sign that supply is about to meet demand real fast. And this makes me want to look into the future, to figure out what is going to explode in interest next.<p>So, HN, what piece of technology do you think is going to grow in popularity next? 3D printing seems to have died off a bit. Internet of things is a bit of a dud. The obvious answers are things in the decentralized sphere, like ipfs and bitcoin. But are there any less obvious regions that you have your finger on the pulse of, that you predict will grow in the near-ish future (say, 3-5 years), which not many of us are aware of?
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tyingq
I feel like there's money in some lower end cloud.

At the moment, AWS/GCP/Azure just kill you with network egress charges.
Consider that the cheap dedicated server companies (Hetzner, OVH) typically
include about $4k/month or more of "free bandwidth" as compared to the big
three.

I imagine Digital Ocean, Linode, OVH, and the like will add the cloud features
that are missing (VPC, object storage, load balancing, DB as a service, SQS,
Cloudwatch-like, etc) and start picking away at them. Or perhaps some
newcomer.

Basically, I feel like a commodity cloud rush is coming.

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bjourne
E-bikes and other kinds of electrified vehicles. They have reached a "tipping
point" because batteries and engines are so good that even out of shape people
can use them to commute to work. What is left is regulation. When the EU and
the US makes 1000 W engines and speeds >25 km/h street legal, then there will
be few reasons to drive cars left.

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fiftyacorn
I think your right - you see e-bikes increasing the practical commute distance
from say 5 miles to 10 miles in a lot of cities

just got my first e-bike - its an electric cargo bike (babboe). Great for
getting the kids around - to be honest most riding doesnt need to electric -
but its good for the hills or a head wind

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indescions_2017
AI, Cloud, Robotics. Will continue to dominate the narrative in the four year
time frame.

I've heard something like a quarter of venture capital is being allocated to
consumer robotics. And it feels like society is reaching a tipping point.
Where the hardware is becoming dependable enough that mainstream America is
ready to allow robots in their homes en masse.

One interesting way to enter if you are a startup is to design a crucial
component of the consumer robotics supply chain. Perhaps a remote sensing kit.
Or modular battery system. But beyond the hype. There is enough substance here
to get excited about this space and its transformative power.

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dabockster
Edge computing. Run computationally intensive tasks on the end user's machine
instead of the cloud.

Basically, what we were doing before cloud took off.

Cloud computing is great and all. But the recent privacy and centralization
issues are real things. There is also the issue of internet bandwidth in rural
and poorer communities, where cloud is not a viable option.

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agitator
I think ML obviously has a lot of applications, but I also think things like
"Neural Nets" and "self-driving cars" have great marketing. But in general I
think software innovations are usually initially limited by hardware, so as
more low powered convolutional accelerator chips come on the market you will
see more and more of the technologies in self-driving cars move into smaller,
more mobile, and more naturally behaving robots. And robotics is made up of
numerous fields: vision, planning, sensors, sensor fusion, perception,
firmware, application software, etc. So any of those will come along for the
ride, ML is great but it can't interact with the world without UI and software
developers and all sorts of other software specializations.

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eb0la
I believe IoT will have a comeback soon coupled with blockchain
technologies...

... or in layman terms, small devices that use P2P networks with cryptography
to send notifications nobody can erase. Great for billing.

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fourfaces
The next big thing will be unsupervised spiking neural networks.
[http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/2017/09/unsupervised-
machin...](http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/2017/09/unsupervised-machine-
learning-what-will.html)

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avinassh
My guess would be on Blockchain and related technologies. Like FinTech
companies trying to make cryptocurrencies common

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chatmasta
In line with @tyingq, the "cloud" will become a commodity, and immutable
infrastructure will automatically reprovision itself to run on the cheapest
set of inventory purchased across multiple clouds.

