
Ask HN: What would you love to pay for if it was available? - ryanwaggoner
Ok, this may go nowhere, but I was inspired by this recent submission on what programming books HN wishes existed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=551339<p>So in the same spirit, what product or service have you found yourself wishing existed?  It could be an info product, tangible product, service, subscription, etc.  It could be related to the web, programming, startups, or just life in general.  The only rule should be that you would actually <i>take out your credit card right now</i> and pay for it if someone offered it.<p>Please don't upvote people's comments unless you would also pay for it.
======
electromagnetic
Bachelor Chow (See: Futurama). It doesn't have to be particularly tasty, but a
simple meal that has 1/3 of your daily nutrition (with 1/3 RDA of all your
vitamins and minerals) would be great. Preferably without ridiculous
quantities of preservatives and artificial flavours.

~~~
stcredzero
There's Clif bars. You can't live off of those full time, though.

Colcannon? If this is made with turnips, kale, and lots of buttermilk, then it
covers a lot of macronutrients. Then take a multivitamin.

~~~
msg
Speaking of which, I was really getting into those Clif Mojo bars at one
point, then we got a box of Nature Valley fruit and nut bars at Costco, so I
forgot about them for a few weeks.

When we ran out of the box, I went back for my Clif Mojos and found out they
were recalled in the peanut salmonella thing. It looks like I missed eating
potentially contaminated food by a few days.

    
    
      </adventures in eating>

------
terragb
A dead simple, cheap 8.5x11 e-ink device with no wifi or touchscreen or
anything like that. Just the ability to page through my already owned pdfs.
Some of them are scanned images, not text so no text conversion. Even if the
only way to get the docs on it was via some kind of virtual printer driver I'd
be happy. I'd basically like a way to read stuff on e-ink as if it had been
printed.

~~~
moe
Seconded. Just today I looked at ebook reader devices again because I really
want one - but the prices are ridiculous.

$359 for a kindle? Come on, that buys me about 35 physical books - close to 2
years of reading material. Give me the kindle _and_ 20 books included, then we
might be talking.

~~~
Scriptor
Some flexibility would be nice here. I'm sure there'd be a few books I'd like
to read in the future, so maybe 10 books with the reader and 10 free ones I
can choose later would be nice.

Still, the XKCD on the Kindle made me really want to try one, if only because
of sentimental reasons.

~~~
moe
In fact, since the kindle is a closed platform, feel free to lock me into
amazon until I have bought enough books to pay it off. I would immediately
order a kindle for $0 that forces me to buy the first 100 books at amazon (as
long as the pdf function is not crippled). $100 / 50 and other combinations
would also work.

I do consider myself an early adopter. But the current asking price is too
steep.

------
dexen
A computer display with at least 200DPI, and about 19...21 inches diagonal.
I'd consider only 1:1 and 4:3 sized ones.

Honestly, several times I've been searching for high resolution displays, and
aside of old, expensive and slow T221 (or crazy-expensive medical and flight
control ones), there are none.

Why such DPI? For starters, it makes anti-aliasing (think, `blurry' fonts,
jagged or blurred widgets and 3D objects and so on) irrelevant. Also, with the
current 85...100 DPI screens, I still see individual pixels, and that's quite
disturbing to me.

~~~
TheSOB88
Stare at the sun for a couple of hours; that might help with the whole "seeing
pixels" issue.

~~~
TheSOB88
Sorry.

------
ivankirigin
I want a desktop computer with a docked netbook. The files, programs, and
program configuration on the netbook should auto-sinc with the desktop. Large
files should be easy to stream from the desktop to the netbook. The netbook
needs to have an embedded, fast cell network data connection.

I might be able to build this myself with a MacPro, a router, a COTS netbook,
hackintosh, dropbox, etc.

I'd probably have at least 2 30 inch displays for the desktop, making the
total cost in parts ~$8K. Companies would be wise to pay $10K for this kind of
setup.

~~~
ibsulon
I've thought about the same thing myself. (I'll make do with the 24 inch
monitors, though. :) I'm surprised the Mac Pro doesn't have a way to dock the
air yet, though.

There are a lot of usability pieces to think about. Do you really want program
configuration to sync? I use programs differently on laptops and desktops.

~~~
ivankirigin
I use a laptop for my "desktop", so I don't see the problem. I run firefox,
terminal, textmate, tweetdeck, and iWork. No configuration changes needed.
Maybe for VM software - which I just wouldn't run on a netbook.

~~~
ibsulon
I use different font sizes for my work on larger screens, for one example.

~~~
ivankirigin
That's interesting. I routinely switch from a 17 inch laptop screen and a 30
inch monitor screen, and don't change the font.

------
diego
\- A laptop battery that lasted for as long as I can stay awake (say, 24
hours).

\- A cellphone that people could call anywhere in the world without paying for
an international call, and that allowed me to call anyone or use my data plan
at the same price regardless of where I'm located. International roaming
charges are so absurdly high that they force me to have different sim cards
and an unlocked phone (extremely inconvenient).

\- A nonstop flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina (EZE) to a major city in
California (SFO, LAX, SAN). I do this several times a year and the
layover/recheck luggage after customs is a killer.

~~~
TheSOB88
I assume the big problem with having two SIM cards would be having two
different numbers and missing tons of calls. Wouldn't it help to have two
different phones so that you wouldn't miss calls?

------
davidw
Decent Mexican food in Europe:-) (BTW, "if it _were_ available")

Edit: if I ever 'made it big', and decided to stay in Italy, I'd invest a
portion of my money in a _good_ Mexican restaurant here. It would probably
lose money, but what the hell.

~~~
cjbos
And New Zealand too.. there are zero quality Mexican restaurants there.

Its not Mexican, but the best Peruvian food I've had outside of Lima is in
Amsterdam <http://www.casaperu.nl/html/casaperu.html> can't recommend it
enough!

(My wife was born in Lima and we eat alot of Peruvian food)

~~~
rdouble
_And New Zealand too.. there are zero quality Mexican restaurants there._

The Mexican food I had in Australia was a "shocker."

------
chris11
Something like a Netflix for books and articles. I'd pay just to rent
textbooks for general education classes. It would need to have a gigantic
library though, big enough to guarantee that I would be able to find any book
through there if it wasn't in a library.

PDF versions of the books would be nice to, so I could access the book
anywhere immediately.

And it would need a good selection of scientific books. I have a scientific
couple books that I want to read, but haven't because they aren't in any local
library systems and used copies are going for over $40 on amazon.

~~~
staticshock
This is an interesting thought. Does anything already exist as a service for
college students to rent textbooks?

~~~
chris11
While access to textbooks would be nice, it wouldn't need to be a major
selling point. If the book is for a class in my major, I want to own a copy so
I can use it as a reference after the class is over. And used textbooks can be
had for a decent price. I just paid $40 including expediated shipping for a
circuits book. The book is in great condition, and I am happy with my
purchase.

And renting textbooks is pretty expensive, especially for older books. I
bought a different used textbook for around $15. The book is in great
condition, and renting it would have cost $40.

------
bemmu
Apartment with a pool in Tampere, Finland. Also I would be more likely to rent
a place using a site that actually allowed me to search for apartments from a
map.

Instant helpful per-minute advice from MySQL/Linux/etc. gurus 24/7 when I need
it. Similarly graphic design where I could in a few moments get sketches of
things and commission them to be turned into finished works. I don't enjoy
hunting for talent on forums/elance and having to wait days for responses when
I need something done now while I am still in the zone to work on that
particular project.

Frappuccino in Finland, although I hope nobody actually does that as it would
make me poor.

A mouse that makes no clicking sound. _It seems to
exist:[http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/14/thanko-silent-mouse-
kills...](http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/14/thanko-silent-mouse-kills-the-
click/) I'll buy one when I go to Japan next time._

~~~
melito
People often laugh at me when I tell them this, but "Awful Mart" on the Awful
Forums is a GREAT place to get good graphic design quickly. Lot of REALLY
talented people visit the awful forums. <http://forums.somethingawful.com>

edit: Just noticed you said you hate searching through forums. SA is rather
large and if you have the patience for a usual 1-2 day turn around its worth
it.

~~~
bemmu
What I mean is being able to buy some credits, then going into a realtime
environment where I can type "Paul graham eating a tuna sandwich", and after
15 minutes seeing several rough sketches. Then I choose the one I like and get
a finished version in less than 24h.

------
tsally
A device that could accurately measure caffeine intake, levels present in the
body, and the strength of your bodies resistance. I know if I have another cup
of coffee at 4PM, the quality of my code will be much better. What I never
know is if it will wear off in time for me to get a normal nights sleep. :)

~~~
Femur
A cheap and noninvasive device that can monitor and record a bunch of metrics
would be great!

I would love to be able to graph my cholesterol, BP, heart rate, etc. over
time. It is a shame i can monitor my car more easily than I can my body.

~~~
tsally
Yeah, data on this stuff is great. The treadmills at our gym actually have a
USB port that you can use to export your average pace and heart rate over a
run. That's the closest I've been able to come.

------
Rob15283
A proven cure for tinnitus. I'd clean out my bank account and cash in all my
401Ks, if need be, to pay for the treatment. For those who don't know what
tinnitus is, just imagine having a high-pitched ringing sound in your head
that never, ever, ever stops. Ever.

~~~
madh
Definitely. My mother suffers from this and I can't even imagine what it must
really be like. A solution would be absolutely wonderful.

------
Tiktaalik
I'd certainly pay for an iTuneslike service for impulse buying old magazines
in a digital format. I love magazines but they're rarely justifiably keepable
as they accumulate and create a terrible clutter. Unfortunately for the
majority of us that throw out magazines after a short time, eventually old
magazines become incredibly interesting. If I come across ancient Wired, Next
Generation or Nintendo Power magazines at a flea market for example, I almost
always buy them, not really to keep, as I usually donate them after reading,
but just to really page through and revel in the nostalgia.

I'd love to be able to go on the web and instantly download some obscure issue
of the magazines I liked when I was a teenager, or looking back farther, old
ancient National Geographics or Esquires or Playboys or whatever. There are
rare magazines as well, such as the Beastie Boys' self published Grand Royal,
that only had a handful of issues.

------
blender
Single serving cat food tins. i.e. Half the size of regular tins.

You might think I'm joking, but I'm not - I looked for this earlier today
online.

Cheers

~~~
johnm
There's already 3 Oz. cans and vacuum packs. Or do you really want 1.5 Oz?

~~~
phr
I use 3oz cans, feed my cat 1/2 can at a time, and still have quite a bit left
over.

------
nickfox
A robotic pleasure unit like in the movie BladeRunner...

~~~
stcredzero
I wonder if there are nerd-oriented escort services?

------
jaxn
A fuel efficient car / minivan with room for a family of 6 to take a road
trip. There are no hybrid minivans :(

~~~
tokenadult
The current hybrid technology produces the most fuel-efficiency gains in stop
and start driving. In other words, it works much better for taxi fleets than
for family road trips.

~~~
jaxn
Well, most of our driving is stop and go, in-town driving. However, it doesn't
make much sense to buy a family car if it doesn't work for road trips as well.
Especially since it is cost prohibitive to fly for a family of 6 when we can
drive for 8-12 hours for a fraction of the cost.

~~~
comatose_kid
Actually, it can make sense to buy a family car that doesn't work for road
trips. Save money (fuel + price) by buying a smaller car, and rent a van for
the few times a year that you need it.

~~~
jaxn
I have not found that to be true for us (again, a family of 6).

Renting a van will cost $500-$1000 for a week. If you do that 3-4 times a year
then you are talking about approx $200/mo in monthly payments that you would
have to save.

------
khafra
A combination proxy/script/something that'd pop up an interstitial task
tracker/to-do list overview when I go to any of a list of "time-sink" sites. I
can click "snooze" and go to the time sink, with the task tracker popping back
up after 5,10,30 minutes, turn it off for a day or two, or click through to
the detail/edit view for any task and get to work.

~~~
cschneid
Leechblock + NowDoThis is my solution to this. I don't actually use NowDoThis,
but it's default is to have it's own name in big letters, which is enough to
remind me to stop slacking.

~~~
khafra
I know of those, but I'm absent-minded enough that I often forget there's many
better things I could be doing. Seeing my long-range goals and my short-range
deadlines in an easy-to-grok format has done wonders for me in the past; I
just need a systematic way of delivering that when it's needed. Ideally, the
software solution could also pop up when I start viewing a comic book archive,
watching a video file, or preparing a snack just because I can't think of
anything more pressing to do.

------
matthall28
More Firefly

~~~
runningskull
And I was thinking you meant <http://is.gd/rtF6>

:D

------
dmolnar
0) Stylish sunglasses that act like the spexware in Bruce Sterling's stories,
or like the smart glasses in Charlie Stross's _Accelerando_. I'd love heads up
displays showing me peoples' names, maps, appointments, and all the stuff for
which I currently rely on my phone.

The hardware is there if you're willing to pay. I recently learned about
research in this direction aimed at helping patients with Alzheimer's (they
also use audio prompts, as well). I don't know of anyone who has packaged up
everything and written software to make this seamless, easy, and fun.

1) A battery for my phone that "never" ran out.

------
melvinram
Teleportation device. Sign me up today!

------
tokenadult
An intelligent agent that would hunt up best comment threads from lots of news
aggregator and other discussion sites.

~~~
hooande
<http://www.backtype.com> perhaps?

------
Femur
I desperately wish i could find top level tropical and non-tropical fruit of
many varieties here in Houston. I love fresh fruit but mangos from Mexico are
not that great and the lack of variety gets old.

~~~
kingsley_20
I'd say. I miss the rainbow hued cornucopia of Indian mango markets. Yes, even
blue mangoes.

------
btwelch
A device that sits on your car dash and takes high-def pictures of the road
ahead (infrared for night-time), then runs some image matching software that
will fire off warnings if deer or other objects are in your path, or are
moving towards your path. An early-warning HUD, to prevent deer strikes.

------
plinkplonk
"The only rule should be that you would actually take out your credit card
right now and pay for it if someone offered it."

ok here goes,

1\. _New_ replicas of old computers like the ZX Spectrum, Comodore 64, Amiga,
the lisp machine, the Newton

2\. The above, but in a handheld form factor

3\. A kindle that reads programming books perfectly, has no drm and can handle
pdf without conversion.

4\. A website that would pay me for learning (hey we are just thinking
creatively! A man can hope!). SO say if I finish all the non research problems
of each chapter of Concrete Mathematics, I'd get 20 $)

------
abstractbill
I would pay for a good enough telepresence application for keeping in touch
with my family and friends (they're in the UK, I'm in San Francisco).

Skype is better than nothing, but still not good enough.

~~~
davidw
Yeah, that's tough. It's even worse when you have a small baby and the
grandparents are far away:-/

Here's an idea for someone: Virtual Grandpa - some sort of telepresence thing
that's been made a bit robust so that a kid can drag it around and drop it
without problems. Maybe like a robust cell phone with a decent size screen and
camera? I actually wouldn't mind working on that too, but feel free to run
with it. The big problem is probably finding hardware that will work: cheap,
robust, and more or less customizable so that the parents can fiddle with it
to 'tune in', and then lock it to some degree.

~~~
comatose_kid
Great idea. A Chumby with a built-in video camera + gtalk/video support might
fit the bill.

------
ErrantX
Chatterous.com

Rather than rehash why I would.. I explained it not long back here:
[http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2009/03/dont-ignore-the-
donator...](http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2009/03/dont-ignore-the-donators-
model/)

How much? At the moment Chatterous is probably worth... $50 a month to me -
and probably more to the company I work at.

EDIT: I realise that verges on linkspam but otherwise I would end up writing
an essay on why chatterous should offer "pay for" - and I already did that :P

~~~
thorax
Yeah, I use this every single day for different circles of work, hobby,
friends. I felt it very succinctly when Gtalk went haywire the other day and
Chatterous was broken.

------
JoelPM
The ability to start up an Extra-Large EC2 instance running OSX and connect to
it using NoMachine.

Combine it with a simple client that runs locally and rsyncs
pictures/music/etc from a local HD with an EBS mounted to the EC2 instance.

(I want a MacPro so I can do photo processing and programming in the evenings,
but I don't want to spend $3.5k for a machine that will sit idle 20hrs/day.)

(For this to be workable I'd also need a fiber connection - but I'd pay for
that too, if it was available.)

~~~
ieatpaste
To generalize, a service that SVN's powerful computers for a hourly fee,
targetting general public on netbooks for video editing, graphic processing,
gaming.

------
mingyeow
A service that matches you up with intellectual AND decent looking folks.

~~~
mixmax
Actually I would settle for a site that matches you up with intellectual
folks...

~~~
tokenadult
HN suffices to provide online conversation with intellectual folks, but I
suppose that you and the person to whom you replied have a more specific
meaning of "match up" in mind. The difficulty of face-meeting people for
intellectual conversation is indeed what keeps a lot of online discussion
groups going.

~~~
mingyeow
I actually mean for DATING. lol

------
reduxredacted
A small business server appliance for non-IT based small businesses. I'm
thinking: Network attached storage with a built in Samba NT compatible domain
controller/windows file/print sharing capabilities. RAID-1 plus an automated
backup mechanism ... maybe, attach an external USB drive and it automatically
does Sunday fulls and daily differentials keeping as many as it can store.
Bonus points if it can take extra SATA hard drives / external drives for
expansion without adding a huge cost.

Why I'd buy it? My dad's company is running a (very nice in its day) server on
Windows NT with "redundant everything" that is starting to fail something
fierce. It's 13 years old but it meets the needs of him and his ten employees
and at the time there wasn't much of a better choice. Since they don't do
anything locally but file/print sharing it seems like such a waste to have a
power hungry box with a monitor on it for such a simple set of requirements.
Also, if something like this were available, I'd replace my existing home-brew
NAS ... based on openSuSE with it in a second if it'd lower my electricity
bill.

~~~
RobGR
I think Buffalo produced something like this called the "yellow box" or
something.

It is getting easier and easier for a low-capital business to produce
something like this. If you are interested in looking at this commercially
send me an email at rgristroph@gmail.com, I have been researching various low
power linux computers and etc.

------
vaksel
Early users, build something where a person can come to your site, pay $1,000
and get 1,000 active users to stimulate the site activity.

~~~
imp
You can use AdWords for that.

~~~
jgilliam
Has anyone used AdWords like this, and how did it work out?

~~~
dthompson
The key is to spend all the ad money in a small period during the day, say
1hr. It is better to have a lot of people on your site 1hr a day then 1 person
on your site all day, that is if you site relies on users to interact.

------
cjbos
Something that allows me to search across all my old browser history (Content
of the pages not the titles). So I can find all those blog posts and articles
I forgot to bookmark for later reading at the time. (I guess I could start
using stumbleupon or something but I want to be able to search in those pages
as well.)

~~~
ks
Opera has that. Once you have visited a page, you can use the address bar to
search through the cache. It will not only search titles but also the content
of the pages

~~~
cjbos
Oh cool thanks for the heads up, I just installed 9.6 and it's right there in
the "What's new in 9.6" copy.

"Quick Find

Have you ever forgotten the page where you found that great article or that
perfect gift? When using Opera, the browser remembers not only the titles and
addresses, but also the actual content of the Web pages you visit."

No need to pay for it either!

------
mazuhl
I'd pay $10 a month for a service that finds podcasts and videos about
specific subjects.

I don't have the time to scour TV listings or subscribe to busy podcasts/RSS
feeds in the hope of finding something to listen to at work/when I'm out and
about. What I'm doing now is going to the BBC iPlayer website every week,
putting in my keywords and hoping something comes up.

I'd pay a monthly subscription to a reliable service that could bring me high
quality content from universities, YouTube Edu, Authors@Google, iTunes store,
the BBC iPlayer, NPR, PBS, Fora.tv, etc. about the subjects/keywords I enter.
What I don't want is homemade slideshows from YouTube or micro-segments of
news. I shouldn't have to sit in Google's search box and now be able to drill
down to find this interesting stuff.

------
Fuca
I will pay for someone to market my skills on commission.

------
davi
"18. The WebOS. It probably won't be a literal translation of a client OS
shifted to servers. But as applications migrate to servers, it seems possible
there will be something that plays a central role like an OS does."

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

I'll know it when I see it, and when I see it, I'll happily pay for it.

It has something to do with CMS + federated, micro social networks. One should
be able to easily migrate + back up one's "OS" to another provider, or even
run the OS in parallel between two providers.

I know this is vague, but I feel the absence of something like it.

------
yaj
A hoverboard as seen on Back to the Future.

~~~
gecko
I used to desperately want a hoverboard. Then, sometime in late middle school
or early high school, when I was getting into physics, I realized that a
hoverboard would have no way of stopping or turning. I was quite depressed.

------
mohamedsa
Very durable writable DVDs that could keep the data even after multiple
scratches, the passage of decades...etc

------
dave_au
This is motivated by the fact that I'm in Australia and our broadband sucks.

Netflix send a whole heap of DVDs through the mail, so they're trust you not
to rip them and distribute copies. If there was a massive content distribution
network with kiosks in shopping centres where I could put in a DVD-RW or usb
storage device (or pay for a blank DVD) and pay for the latest movies and TV
shows I'd make a good amount of use of it.

It's mostly about saving bandwidth, but also trying to provide an extremely
fast and convinient alternative to piracy. If that existed, I'd probably use
it. I already buy TV shows on DVD if someone I trust recommends them highly
enough - a much better experience for me than watching them on TV, no adds,
pause, rewind, etc...

We get some shows quite a bit later here, and a few of the good shows only
come to pay tv. So the timing would be the key. As soon as the TV show is
aired anywhere - bam - available from the kiosk. The premium for being ad free
and not getting it on the studios timeline might more or less balance out with
the savings in packaging and distribution.

Same with movies. Theaters wouldn't be happy, but we're rapidly approaching
the days when people will go to the movies for the theater experience and
otherwise just get hold of it online (one way or another).

As a bonus idea, if the kiosks kept records of what you'd bought then buying a
whole series through the kiosk gets you a big discount on the DVDs if you want
the physical media since you've already paid for the IP at the point.

~~~
RobGR
<http://www.cineflashplayer.com/>

Click on the products part to see that they sell through kiosks.

------
callmeed
I want cable TV service and this is how I want it:

\- A la carte pricing: $1 per channel per month (I'd go $1.50 for HD channels
and more for premium channels of course)

\- I want an IP-based/wifi-enabled DVR that records shows in a non-proprietary
video format. I can browse the files from any computer in my home or configure
my router so I can access them from work. If it can browse web videos ala
boxee, great. I don't care about it skipping commercial–heck, I don't even
care if it appends pre-roll/ticker ads to the files.

------
mike463
A computer I could hang on the wall in the bathroom or kitchen that just
displays tasks/reminders for the day.

You know, a simple dashboard to start the day.

~~~
staticshock
I'm not sure how far digital picture frames are advancing, but you could
probably get a wi-fi one, and display an image from a remote server (your
desktop), where you generate an image from text on the fly.

------
rdouble
Regenerative disc therapy for my lower back injury.

------
lliles
A secure, online back-up solution for all my computers that is dead-simple to
use on all OSes.

And I mean dead-simple as in install a client that by default intelligently
finds the stuff that I might want to back-up (iTunes library, folders with
lots of pictures, My Documents, /etc & /home directories, etc.), with the
ability to specify certain folders/directories as well. Or since we're
dreaming, why not the whole computer? And of course it always runs in the
background, never consumes 100% of my CPU or bandwidth when I'm using the
computer, is always up to date, and pretty much never bothers me once I've set
it up.

I don't want to think about back-ups. I don't want my family to have to think
about back-ups. My dad is interested in getting an iPod and will definitely
purchase songs on iTunes. I want a dead simple setup for him to keep those
backed up.

------
pietro
A pan-European plan for the iPhone so that I could actually use the phone
while travelling.

------
pclark
Luck.

------
ZehraNasif
Teleportation --will pay double for the service.

~~~
niels_olson
you know all those random pixels you get in a fax or even a scan? Yeah. Do
that to your brain. Or, more particularly, the wall of a high pressure artery,
in your brain.

~~~
icey
Excuse me while I put my sci-fi hat on...

I think teleportation will have to be an analog technology instead of a
digital one.

By analog I mean manipulation of space/time fabric that you actually step
through, as opposed to being scanned and reconstructed on the other side.

------
intheory0
I'd buy a CDMA iPhone. Forget ATT's slow and spotty GSM 3G. Bring on CDMA
RevA.

~~~
jamiequint
Totally, its unacceptable that there are so many 3G dead spots in San
Francisco of all places!

------
sho
Ghost in the Shell Section 9-spec full robot body. Medical immortality.
Nanotechnological bone strengthening, brain-damping mesh, damage repair,
bloodstream oxygen cache system. Brain augmentation. Cancer-free cigarettes.
Perfect, invisible contraception and STD prevention. Cyborg love doll, again
see GitS. I could go on all day!

Maybe a little outside the implied timeframe of potential availability, but
that's what I _really_ want, not some minor upgrade of 2009 tech! : )

------
reduxredacted
A REAL sequel to Star Control 2 (a.k.a. Ur-Quan Masters)

------
ALee
Business: \- a way way better analytics system that integrates with our own
logs and sql calls \- a better referral system for hiring, contacts, etc.

Personally: \- a system to clean up my contacts and make sure that all my
living address books (linkedin facebook) work out. \- a front end for
mechanical turk, so that I know I'm getting Turk rates without doing the
outsourced assistant

------
bokonist
the pre-1992 version of usenet

~~~
RobGR
Voted up, because I am actually planning to pay for a giganews feed, now that
Time Warner killed there usenet servers.

~~~
Zev
Missing the point, dude. Its not about what you have access to group-wise, but
rather what's posted on the groups. In this case, he's asking for intelligent
discussion instead of warez.

~~~
RobGR
I would pay for good access with long article expire times, to only to comp.*
and sci.* and the other useful text-only groups. I have never downloaded any
binary file from a newsgroup, and I have been using them since about 1994.

------
jasonlbaptiste
A battery so good that I don't have to _worry_ about battery life again.

------
asciilifeform
A decent computing environment.

(Technically available now: <http://www.lispmachine.net/symbolics.txt> but I
would like one that meets modern specs.)

------
AndrewDucker
A silent XBMC box in a small form factor.

Think "Apple TV", but without having to worry about hacks, and with built in
keyboard/mouse support.

------
mattmaroon
I would have told you an iPhone that is on a good network, has a keyboard, and
doesn't suck to actually use as a phone, but it sounds like Palm is going to
come through on that one for me.

So instead I'll go with a tech-focused social news site where I don't have to
hear 3 times a day how everyone not in the tech industry is stupid and doesn't
get it, and is, by trying to make a profit and protect valid IP, tilting at
windmills.

------
antidaily
streaming NFL games.

~~~
Tiktaalik
streaming NHL games for me but same concept :).

I feel bad for all the brits at my work that are probably dying to see good
soccer on the TV and can't find any. They'd probably love a streaming sports
site as well.

~~~
paddy_m
Streaming formula 1 races.

~~~
racerboy
justin.tv!

------
bayareaguy
FreeBSD AMI's

------
jraines
Camtasia Studio for Linux.

------
mixmax
A proper webbased project management tool.

------
jmtame
a way to record streaming audio on a mac _and_ auto splitting with auto
tagging. Would pay up to $100

------
joe_adk
A bluetooth track-wheel mouse.

------
pavelludiq
starcraft 2. I hope its not ridiculously expensive when it comes out(im sort
of used to not paying for stuff).

------
taciturn
An online memorial for a dead relative.

~~~
antiismist
check out <http://mem.com>. They made something for a friend's relative
recently (unfortunately) and it looked quite nice.

~~~
staticshock
I don't mean to be rude, but how is a service like this actually used? I mean,
in your experience, what's different about it versus, say, a blog, or even a
simple cms like jottit?

~~~
antiismist
Here's how it was done: <http://jeffreyfalstrom.com/>

When someone close to you passes away, you are distraught and have a lot of
things to take care of. Maybe you don't want to register a domain and do
design and stuff (most people aren't designers afterall). So they set you up
with a nice memorial and take care of the details in a tasteful way. Think of
it as a specialized CMS.

