

Ask HN: Idea for a blog: whydontwehaveityet - tocomment

So seeing that -2F superconductor story a few days ago.  I got to thinking, someone really needs to follow up on this story and see if anything comes of it.  And there are all kinds of articles where they hype some new technology that we're supposed to have in 5 years.  I think it would be an interesting blog to do investigative type reporting to talk to the people involved in inventing and commercializing these things and find out what the hold up is, how well they're actually coming along, possibly even what people can do to help.<p>Here are some technologies I'd like to see covered just off the top of my head:<p>Reservatrol<p>Anything with stem cells<p>Carbon nanotubes<p>That -2F superconductor<p>That super capacitor mentioned a few years ago (estor?)<p>Memristors<p>Some super efficient way to process titanium I heard about (we were supposed to have super cheap titanium by now)<p>Anyway, just wanted some general feedback on the idea.  I'm probably too shy to do it alone, I wouldn't want to be calling strangers all over the world to track down the technologies.  But I'd be happy if someone else picked up this idea and did it.
======
wallflower
Check out Technology Review (TR) published by MIT. I was a long-time
subscriber.

<http://www.technologyreview.com/>

~~~
IgorCarron
Yes this is good thing, but I think the issue is trying to understand how the
technologies are maturing. TR doesn't follow through on most of the
technologies it features.

~~~
wallflower
Yes, I agree. I wanted to point out that their initial reporting on technology
is superb.

~~~
IgorCarron
agreed.

------
percept
Sounds like a job for "crowdsourcing." If you can't reach original sources,
perhaps you can get responses from people who know people, work in the same
field, etc.

Like a Science HN. I guess there's a Science Reddit now ("I'm a stem cell
researcher--ask me anything").

Edit: Maybe that's what we really need--Reddit with only "I'm a" posts from
qualified, authoritative sources. Of course that's what rating systems are
supposed to be for.

~~~
tocomment
that's a good point. Maybe if I used crowd sourcing I wouldn't have to call
anyone.

------
flooha
Funny, I was thinking about almost exactly the same topic just yesterday. Much
of the problem absolutely has to be patents. I have several awesome ideas
which I will never put one second of effort into because I know I would get
patent trolled to death and none of them are software related.

If we TRULY wanted to evolve mankind at the fastest rate possible, we would
instantly share new discoveries and methods and allow anyone to use, profit or
build upon them with no restrictions. The conundrum is that, while this
greatly benefits mankind, the inventor gets the proverbial shaft. Sadly, I
don't see this problem being solved any time soon.

------
wicknicks
That's an interesting idea. Maybe we could use some interesting automatic
means to "cluster" information from these new technology areas. Suppose a
system allowed someone to create a new technology area by defining all the
entities involved in it (Names of people, research center, location of
research center etc). A web crawler could use these as filters to pick out the
latest info from it and supply it to the interested folks.

~~~
tocomment
That's a cool idea.

------
qeorge
Not as high-tech, but that Power Mat [1] device seems like a good example. I
remember reading about it a few years ago, and just saw the first commercials
for it this week.

Its a good premise for a blog, and would have plenty of topics. Like all
blogs, it would depend on whether you stuck with it long enough to get in the
groove.

[1] <http://www.powermat.com/>

------
IgorCarron
It's a very nice idea actually. I'd contribute to it. What happens in most
cases is that that one of the party (researchers, PR, ....) has oversold the
potential product in the first place. Another part of the story is that in the
process of maturing, or increasing their technology readiness levels (TRL)
some technologies just don't make it because they do not find a niche market
to evolve in and grow.

------
stcredzero
_That super capacitor mentioned a few years ago (estor?)_

Someone periodically comes up with a new longer lived/more potent battery or a
very compact capacitor. The problem is not making such devices. The problem is
making them safe and cheap to manufacture.

------
smokinn
Here's another suggestion: wireless electricity. There's the new Sony wireless
tv but it's an idea that should've picked up way more than it has, especially
for stuff like cell phones.

------
rman666
Flying cars; medical tricorders; food replicators; space vacations; gravity
boots; anti-gravity boots; Rosie the robot; basically, anything from Star Trek
or the Jetsons.

~~~
stcredzero
_Flying cars_ \-- this deserves it's own blog. Or perhaps blog/ghetto would be
a better way to put it. Or maybe just a single Snopes-like blog entry that
people could permalink to whenever this comes up.

