HN Explorer

Ask HN: What are your crazy tech ideas?

12 points by hadeon ↗ HN
If you could work on absolutely any problem in tech / science, what would it be?

Rules:

- assume you have access to capital - assume you don't have to move - assume you can work on it full time - it has to be plausible, but doesn't have to currently be possible (time travel is out, large scale human cloning is in)

I'm interested in people's seemingly crazy ideas.

12 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 42.4 ms ] thread
throwaway_009
Large scale cheap desalination. I was born in a dry area which had so less water that no crops would grow and the water was rationed. It absolutely sickens me that our "blue" planet has so less drinking water. I am still thinking about solutions but unfortunately that isn't my main focus right now until I can sustain myself.
nunobrito
Mosquito laser hunter

Inside a room: a device identifies a flying insect, tracks its movements and beams a high-powered laser to bring it down.

The benefit is an automated perimeter protection at locations plagued by mosquitoes that bring malaria, health issues and suck the blood out of humans.

There is the risk of inadvertently shooting humans or animals.

andrewstuart
How about a wheeled robot cockroach catcher that patrols kitchens at night?
nunobrito
I respect cockroaches after finding they can survive nuclear radiation.

You might need a Terminator unit from the future to effectively hunt those peskers.

slimshady94
Some kind of generic IoT sensor that you could attach/integrate with almost any physical object, that could open up that object for digital communication. And the sensor would have no/very long lasting batteries.
segmondy
Artificial general intelligence
Regardsyjc
A decentralized marketplace that's like Amazon.com but without Amazon. Creating an easy software solution to bring the inventory of every brick and mortar store online for cheap quick delivery or pick up. The ability to track/authorize orders so if someone bought an iPhone and they wanted to resell it, they could relist it on the marketplace as a used item with one click.

Some state of the art trust system between manufacturers, sellers, service providers, and customers. The ability to police counterfeiters and scalpers. Manufacturer says they created 10,000 and they sold to these parties and you can trace the supply chain from manufacturer to customer.

thedevindevops
I'd like to work on the control system for a travelling wave reactor or the operating system for a space station.
hadeon
That's cool! What's a travelling wave reactor?
thedevindevops
A very efficient type of 'nextgen' nuclear reactor that -once fueled - can potentially run, self-sustained, for decades without refueling or removing spent fuel. But it requires very advanced nuclear physics to design and maintain.