

HN: What's the coolest new tech that isn't popular now but will be in a year? - fnazeeri


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benologist
Firefox's mobile OS for making decent, fast smartphones affordable in the
developing world. I think this is going to have a big impact and it's going to
be the catalyst for html5 as a serious gaming and application platform.

Ubuntu's mobile version for being the next big step in making the PC obsolete,
I don't think this will have a huge commercial impact but it's got some great
potential and we're going to learn a lot from it.

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Sven7
+1 for Firefox OS.

Hope they can take advantage of learnings from Androids mistakes primarily
fragmentation. I'll be rooting for them.

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phaus
I don't know what it will be, but it most certainly won't be Google Glass.
Until now, I've loved pretty much all of Google's projects, but I can't
imagine ever wanting one until the technology is small enough to fit inside a
normal pair of glasses and remain completely out of sight.

I also don't really get the whole smart-watch phenomenon. My smartphone easily
replaced my wristwatch. The only time that it isn't more convenient is when
I'm going for a run.

I'm cautiously optomistic about Ubuntu's shot at convergence. If they succeed,
it would be amazing. I'm also pretty excited about Firefox OS, but I don't
really know if it has a real shot.

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sethish
No offense, but I have the opposite opinion on every point you mentioned.

Well, google glass will catalyze something interesting, but it won't be in the
next year, or maybe next 5 years. But I do think that ergonomic wearable
technology is a meaningful and reasonable extension of the smart phone
revolution.

This is why I think the smart watch (while not great yet) is a good step
forward. The ergonomics of taking my fragile and slippery phone out of a
pocket to check the time or to check my message count isn't ideal. Putting
that notification display on my body is better.

I have a low confidence in Ubuntu accomplishing anything given the quality of
the software they have produced. Their NIH sentiments of late (MIR vs Wayland,
Unity vs Gnome-shell) are troubling. Historically, Ubuntu has produced
relatively little software on their own, building instead on Debian and the
rest of the open source community (which is awesome!) but now they are
migrating towards a desktop & mobile platform where they build all of the
software in-house. Further, they require copyright assignment from
contributors who want to work on their software, which has to limit willing
contributors.

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contingencies
Decentralized financial settlement systems (ala Bitcoin, Ripple).

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orokusaki
I think Bitcoin was considered cool circa early 2011. It can almost be
considered mainstream, if not for that little fact that Fox News, et al define
what is commonly known as "mainstream".

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relaunched
Natural User Interfaces and multi-sensor arrays. The next Kinect will
revolutionize NUI in the home.

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joezydeco
If Ellsworth and Johnson are on track, CastAR augmented reality goggles could
be a fun little thing.

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contingencies
3D printing.

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contingencies
Parallel design (CUDA, cluster-targeted applications, etc.)

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shail
web apps

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jamesjguthrie
I think web apps are slightly starting to become cool again, lots of people
are realising that they don't need individual platform apps when the web can
reach them all.

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orokusaki
Wetware to hardware interfaces, no joke.

There is many a company working on what will inevitably result in very
rudimentary mind-reading machines within the next few years, and the early
stages of these techs will surely be "cool" next year.

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contingencies
Agreed. This time next year: LISP IDE based on subtle brain wave
manipulations! Hehehehe.

