Ask HN: What projects are 20 years ahead of their time? - miguelrochefort
======
est
I'd say IE5.5.

All those dHTML shit, like DirectX, MIDI, .htc (Javascript Components), <img
dynsrc> for videos, a sane CSS box model, css and inter-page transformations,
VML for vector graphics, VRML for VR (buzzword), XML islands (influenced e4x
and later JSX), the original xhr object, native cryto APIs, etc.

You can even program jscript on server side with asp, or execute standalone
with ActiveScript, even control native GUI like customizing your folder, the
browser can be morphed to the file explorer. You can make apps with few kb of
jscript unlike 55MB electron install bundle.

The Windows help files (CHM) are like thousand years better than macOS
counterparts and linux man files. CHM was the de facto ebook format back then
and it works really well with features like indexable topics and full text
search. We now have to use devdocs.io or dash.

yes it has its quirks and worms, but it was way ahead of its time.

~~~
open-source-ux
I'm a bit late to this discussion but wanted to add that Microsoft started
developing desktop apps that were web-like in appearance and behaviour back in
2000 (e.g, MS Money). Here we are in 2017 and we've returned to the same idea.
Here are Microsoft's Inductive User Interface (IUI) Guidelines from 2001:

[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms997506.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ms997506.aspx)

 _" The IUI is a new user interface model that suggests how to make software
applications simpler by breaking features into screens or pages that are easy
to explain and understand. Microsoft has implemented this model in Microsoft
Money 2000"_

------
bsenftner
Back in 2002, I started working on "automated digital doubles of real people"
with an eye on automated actor replacement. I'd been working in VFX, with a
history in 3D development going back to the early 80's. Long story short:
started with a stellar team and I wrote and was awarded a global patent on
automated actor replacement in filmed media. The company, patent and seed
funding all come together just as the financial crisis at the end of Bush's
term climaxed. Team scattered, I went it alone building a freelancer tiny
team. Pivot to a game character service. I was never able to achieve more than
a half way decent game character creation web API, which no one would pay to
use. All that is left now is 1) the twitter account
[https://twitter.com/3davatarstore?lang=en](https://twitter.com/3davatarstore?lang=en),
and of course I still have all the tech. I use it for facial recognition now,
and no longer make avatars. It's even better now, but even when contacted by
interested parties, no one want to pay for it, at all.

~~~
Babooster
If you have a patent then sue Disney for Rogue One.

~~~
bsenftner
sold, 2012.

------
tylerruby
Lilium - The world’s first electric vertical take-⁠off and landing jet.
([https://lilium.com/](https://lilium.com/))

Neuralink - Develops high bandwidth and safe brain-machine interfaces.
([https://neuralink.com/](https://neuralink.com/))

Magic Leap - Mixed Reality ([https://magicleap.com](https://magicleap.com))

Crispr-Cas9 - A unique technology that enables geneticists and medical
researchers to edit parts of the genome by removing, adding or altering
sections of the DNA sequence.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR#Cas9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR#Cas9))

This is a great question. The acceleration of technology has made it important
for entrepenuers to look further ahead than ever when deciding where they want
to make their impact in the world. Tomorrow's successful leaders in business
will be the ones that peered into the most obscure places of the future to
find it's problems and it's solutions.

~~~
cousin_it
Lilium and Magic Leap are fake, idk about the others.

~~~
ricardobeat
Lilium test flight: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15369850/lilium-jet-
flyin...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15369850/lilium-jet-flying-car-
first-flight-vtol-aviation-munich)

~~~
dis-sys
it is fake. two observations:

1\. they sent a pre-recorded video to the media instead of inviting the media
to witness the test flight. those who are capable of building such flying cars
don't make stupid mistakes in such scale.

2\. it has 36 engines, good luck for the vibrational modes.

~~~
amelius
Also wondering what its radius of flight would be.

------
TACIXAT
FPV Drone Racing - While automated flight is making great progress, there are
some amazing pilots out there. Something about a person standing in a field
with goggles and a controller feels so future to me.

3D Printing - This is going to be the main way to manufacture things in the
future. The lab that is 3D printing houses with concrete. That makes me
terrified for home values going forward. It will likely shift all the value
into the land. The house will just become something you tear down and reprint
every 10 years.

CRISPR - s/shitty gene sequence/perfect gene sequence/g That's insane. It's
like an anti-virus product for the body (irony intended). We're going to live
a very long time and be practically disease free pretty soon. I'm planning on
living until 150 (27 now). It's placing a big bet on medical science, but I
feel like we're on the edge of some huge things.

~~~
mcphage
> That makes me terrified for home values [...] The house will just become
> something you tear down and reprint every 10 years.

The idea of me moving all my shit out of my house every 10 years is terrifying
enough on is own...

~~~
kyriakos
A mostly automated moving company will move all your stuff out while your
spending time at a resort while you house 2.0 is being printed and will
replace the items back in

~~~
mcphage
> will replace the items back in

Via reprinting? Because if so I may be sold.

------
AndrewDucker
Look back 20 years to 1997. Before Windows 2000 brought together the home and
server codebases. Before the internet was available on mobile phones. Heck,
back then the internet was used by less than 2% of the global population.

What was 20 years ahead of its time then? What would you have looked at and
thought "That'll be massive in 20 years"?

About the only thing I can think of is VR. Which Sega tried to launch in the
late 90s, and only now is selling over a million units.

~~~
ams6110
Many of the web startups in the late 1990s had good ideas but were about 20
years too early.

A lot of things that have succeeded today were tried then and failed either
because the technology couldn't scale, or the bandwidth wasn't there, or
because people just weren't ready for it.

~~~
rjsw
I worked for two startups in the 1980s that were doing online hypertext and
searching multiple online databases.

Failure reasons were the ones you list plus lack of TCP/IP provision.

------
tpeo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu)

I want to believe.

~~~
ativzzz
Funny how I encountered one of the problems this tries to solve. My smartphone
died so I booted up my trusty Samsung Galaxy S (yea that's S without a number
on it) and went about trying to flash a newer version of android to it, only
to find about 90% of download links to the necessary programs to be dead. This
is only 6-7 years ago. Imagine how much of the internet becomes useless so
quickly.

~~~
donclark
The phone I currently use, is a Samsung Galaxy S III - which is 7 years old
runs better than it ever has. It runs Android 7 via LineageOS.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_III)

[https://lineageos.org/](https://lineageos.org/)

~~~
Tritrin
It can't be 7 years old, it was released 2012.

------
headcanon
I'd say most of the ethereum-based startups, like swarm city or golem. Right
now they're going a Cambrian explosion of different business models, many of
which require everyday people to be using cryptocurrencies on a regular basis.
Current prices are due to speculation for this eventuality, and personally I'm
bullish on crypto, but this feels too much like the 90s was for the internet.
Not that that's a bad thing, it's just the natural cycle of innovation.

~~~
merrickread
yup, the vast majority of these unregulated ICO's are borderline fraud and
stand only to hurt the ecosystem which they're trying to enrich. I expect
there will be a heavy correction towards the end of 2017.

------
fiftyacorn
Driverless cars and a lot of AI - to me these technologies are beginning, and
Im expecting to see a lot of bad AI in the coming years before it settles down

------
DonbunEf7
The various object-capability projects alive right now, like Tahoe-LAFS,
Monte, Cap'n Proto, Sandstorm, and Genode, are all very much future
technology. Imagine:

* No accounts, no passwords, just secret keycaps

* Instead of messy and complex role-based tables, capabilities always know exactly what they are capable of doing

* No more confused deputies

* Fine-grained trust

~~~
jonjacky
Here is a book of case studies of object-capability projects in the 1960s 70s
and 80s, including several products from big computer companies:

[http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/capabook/](http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~levy/capabook/)

~~~
Jtsummers
I didn't know you were on HN. Tangential to the discussion, thanks for your
book _The Way of Z_. That was one of the first books I read in my efforts to
understand and formal methods and specifications.

------
candiodari
Homomorphic encryption. Software that is secure, based purely on the software
itself, and can still be secure even on compromised hardware. This will enable
real cryptocurrencies and zero-trust state-like entities.

------
richardthered
The Long Now Foundation and their 10,000-year clock.
[http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/)

It's a clock. A physical clock. Designed and built to run, accurately, for
10,000 years without human intervention.

~~~
angus-prune
Its not without human intervention, it is with only bronze age (iirc) level
maintenance.

------
spodek
Mine: to motivate people to choose to lower their pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions (significantly, not just _raising awareness_ or things like using
electric cars instead of driving significantly less).

People can do it but they prefer living the way they do, which is what is
causing the problems, knowing in principle that they should change their
behavior but not actually doing so.

Miami flooding more and more is not enough of a burning platform yet. Nature
will provide it if we don't choose to change ourselves.

------
qubex
Hopefully my grandmother's funeral arrangements.

~~~
noblethrasher
I'm editing the obituary for my grandmother right now, which is due to the
funeral home in 2½ hours.

~~~
qubex
Suddenly my smart-alec quip is revealed to be very unfunny. I apologise and
you have my condolences.

~~~
noblethrasher
Heh, it's all good; I didn't take it as a quip at all, and I also hope that
you have many more years with your grandmother (call her often).

Thank you for your condolences.

------
otterley
Not quite 20 years too soon, but Six Degrees pioneered social networking in
1997:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SixDegrees.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SixDegrees.com)

------
Raphmedia
Anything VR / AR. It did exist but the world and the tech wasn't ready. Hell,
both still aren't.

~~~
angryasian
AR I can see becoming a part of everyday life. VR not so much. I think the
challenges, primarily locomotion will not be solved without a big investment.
VR will succeed as arcades and amusement park settings.

~~~
ENGNR
With a high resolution I could see full VR being pretty great for programming,
considering how hard developers often try to remove distractions and go deeper
into the problem, and how useful multiple monitors are

Just a pitch black room, full body tracking, voice and gesture interface,
probably a few keyboards around the room (glowing within the headset) if you
want to those for some tasks

------
otterley
The AT&T video phone (1992):
[http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/07/business/company-news-
cons...](http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/07/business/company-news-consumer-
videophone-by-at-t.html)

------
d--b
What does that really mean? Do you mean projects that are being worked on
right now and that will be delivered in 20 years? Or projects that are
finished now and that will be understood in 20 years? Or projects that people
thought wouldn't be possible before 20 years?

1: VR, self driving vehicles, nuclear fusion, artificial photosynthesis,
quantum computers, robots that can manipulate things like men, wave energy
harvesting, colonize mars, cure cancer, cure Alzheimer's disease.

2: no idea!

3: drones, deepmind, blue led, electric sports cars, flyboards, voice
activated assistants, smart wearables...

~~~
door
>like men

like people _

~~~
ahoka
These are synonyms and your comment adds nothing to the conversation.

~~~
door
no they aren't.

men are a subset of people. gender is not relevant to robots manipulating
objects

------
owebmaster
IndieWebCamp: [https://indieweb.org/](https://indieweb.org/)

------
SideburnsOfDoom
Some current things are either going to be huge, normal, mainstream and _just
work_ in a boring way in 20 years time, or they are current fads which will
pass.

Cryptocurrencies. 3d printers.

------
js8
Antropogenic Global Warming.

I am being sarcastic. But it's very hard to see, today, any technology that
could make my life significantly better (at least than fixing climate change).

------
erik998
James Orlin Grabbe
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Orlin_Grabbe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Orlin_Grabbe)

His Digital Monetary Trusts
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Monetary_Trust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Monetary_Trust)

The End of Ordinary Money
[https://www.memresearch.org/grabbe/money1.htm](https://www.memresearch.org/grabbe/money1.htm)

Cyc an artificial intelligence project that attempts to assemble a
comprehensive ontology and knowledge base of everyday common sense knowledge,
with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning.

The project was started in 1984 by Douglas Lenat at MCC and is developed by
the Cycorp company. Parts of the project are released as OpenCyc, which
provides an API, RDF endpoint, and data dump under an open source license.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc)

Prolog, Backward chaining, forward chaining, opportunisitic reasoning.

------
halis
Uh if you look at what is happening today, OBVIOUSLY Javascript was 20 years
ahead of its time. You're welcome.

------
boramalper
Netscape Enterprise Server and Server-Side JavaScript (SSJS)

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18350910/netscape-
enterp...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18350910/netscape-enterprise-
server-and-server-side-javascript-ssjs-vs-node-js)

~~~
MichaelGG
Microsoft had ASP with JScript, and it was faster than VBScript. Never really
popular from what I can tell.

------
the_common_man
Definitely [https://cloudron.io](https://cloudron.io). I dream of a world
where everyone has their own server to go with their smartphone. Also,
sandstorm as has already been mentioned elsewhere

------
tim333
Nuclear fusion? I can see this thing in 20 years
[http://news.mit.edu/2015/small-modular-efficient-fusion-
plan...](http://news.mit.edu/2015/small-modular-efficient-fusion-plant-0810)

~~~
maze-le
Nuclear fusion energy is always 40 years before beeing production ready, at
least since the 1950s.

~~~
adrianN
Nuclear fusion is mostly some amount of investment away. It's never been
funded at the levels that predict "30 years away". In fact, funding has been
continuously reduced: [http://imgur.com/sjH5r](http://imgur.com/sjH5r)

------
jonrgrover
Any project that works with information inside a computer program as well as
data has a chance to be 20 years ahead of its time. Current software
development supports information very poorly, and supports data very well.
Right now the most we can do to work with information is to extract it after
the fact using Data Analytics. If we could work with information inside a
program that would be a huge leap from where we are now.

------
contingencies
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Fut...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future)

------
DocSavage
Making significant impact on psychiatry via brain simulations.
[https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/medicine/](https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/medicine/)

I could see this happening within 20 years, but not in the confines of the
current project.

------
auganov
Datomic when it first came out probably. Meaning still over 10 years ahead of
its time.

------
skdotdan
SpaceX. Of course they still need time, work and funding. But they have a
working product ahead of their competitors that clearly shows a path to the
future of space exploration and colonization.

------
srinivasang87
Breakthrough Starshot / Nano spacecrafts - much more than 20 years ahead

------
PeterStuer
I was doing autonomous mobile robotics in the 1987-1996 era, does that count?

------
sunstone
SpaceX self landing rockets. "I'm on a barge!"

------
srinivasang87
1\. Breakthrough Starshot / Nano spacecraft - much ahead of its time 2\.
Wireless power transmission of electricity / space based solar farms

------
TurboHaskal
APL comes to my mind.

~~~
icen
As in, it is still 20 years ahead of its time, or was it's moment somewhere in
the 80s?

~~~
romanovcode
20 years ago they redesigned already built products to make them more consumer
friendly (nothing wrong with that, pretty cool).

Now it's mostly lagging behind and making their products less consumer
friendly.

~~~
TurboHaskal
Woah dude I meant the programming language.

------
conception
Crypto currencies probably. I could see taking a generation for them to be
mainstream and understood by the public the way the internet is today.

~~~
cm2187
I very much doubt that. Tech people love it as a nice invention with a
libertarian twist. But what is the incentive for my grand-mother to use it
over regular cash?

~~~
Babooster
Being able to send any amount money anywhere all over the world with no fees
or restrictions and with great privacy isn't interesting?

~~~
adrianN
Transactions won't be free. Somebody has to do some mining. Some googling
indicates that a typical bitcoin transaction costs about two dollars today. In
my experience, paying money via Paypal or credit card costs about the same.

~~~
miguelrochefort
> Transactions won't be free. Somebody has to do some mining.

Proof-of-Stake (as opposed to Proof-of-Work) will change that.

> Some googling indicates that a typical bitcoin transaction costs about two
> dollars today.

This is because Bitcoin reached the limit of transactions that can fit in a
block, which causes a bottleneck, which increases fees. This has been fixed
for other cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin will soon (August 1st) fix it.

------
bikamonki
Whatever Elon is working on...

------
arisAlexis
Maidsafe

------
baybal2
Cybikos?

------
ghuntley
https//reactiveui.net

~~~
miguelrochefort
Gotta love Paul Betts' work.

------
carsongross
Well, intercooler.js is 20 years _behind_ its time:

[https://github.com/LeadDyno/intercooler-
js](https://github.com/LeadDyno/intercooler-js)

Does that count?

