HN Explorer

Ask HN: What technology are you excited or optimistic about?

16 points by nharada ↗ HN
It feels like Hackernews lately(?) reflects the pessimistic state of the world -- every technology related comment thread seems like a big list of complaints and reasons why the thing being discussed isn't actually any good.

I thought it would be interesting to see what things Hackernews is excited about in the world of tech. What are you looking forward to or optimistic about?

18 comments

[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 46.9 ms ] thread
dangus
5G. I don’t know why it has such a bad rap. Perhaps millimeter wave tech was over-hyped. 5G is a significant improvement and will allow wireless carriers to compete directly against home Internet providers.

Sure, it isn’t like 3 cellular carriers is a huge level of choice, but it sure beats “Comcast is my only option.”

This generation of graphics cards is exciting and I’m hoping AMD will have a strong showing with the RX 6000 series.

Depending on the specifics on pricing and hardware I’m excited for the small iPhone 12, as long as it doesn’t eschew too many high-end features compared to the larger ones.

pickle-wizard
I too am looking forward to 5G.

Right now my options at home at unreliable expensive cable, or slow DSL with a data cap. I currently have both, as I got tired of outages when I am trying to work or watch Netflix. I have a UniFi Dream Machine Pro that will auto fail over when the cable goes down.

Once someone starts offering fixed 5G service in my area I'll replace the cable circuit with it as long as it doesn't have a CGNAT on the IPv4 side.

dangus
I see right now that T-Mobile offers unlimited no-cap home internet at $50/month. Worth looking into if that service can fit your needs.

I don’t actually know if the hardware is 5G yet.

pickle-wizard
I looked into that, but they don't offer it in my area.
giantg2
I think the bad rap is because the real-world testing shows it as being slower than 4G due to how AT&T has implemented their system.

For myself, I don't really see the need for 5G. Just one more frequency to get blasted with.

XCSme
I personally don't see the benefit of 5G. I have fiber at home, 4G speeds on mobile are really good (where I get good signal).

Why would I care about 5G if my internet speed is already ok? Also 5G requires a lot of infrastructure, so it's only the developed countries only can get the improvements, not like it's starlink (bringing internet to remote areas).

pickle-wizard
VMware is going to show ESXi on ARM at VMworld in a couple of weeks. I don't have any production use for it, but it is neat and look forward to adding it to my home lab.
rikroots
A few years back I got very excited by the advances in electronic paper displays. I still live in hope that one day I will be able to buy a roll of e-paper (at a reasonably cheap price), hang it on the wall, add a receiver and watch TV on it.

Is there any hope that such a technology could become reality in 10 years?

verdverm
Augmented Reality, as demonstrated by the Hololens 2
giantg2
I am excited for this too. I had the chance to check out a HoloLens a couple years ago when doing research for my job. I can see this being a great tool in many fields.
he11ow
Natural Language Processing. To me it epitomizes the Bezos saying on how it's always Day 1 of the Internet.

In just a few years we've moved from an Internet where nearly every website could be listed in a directory, where CONTENT was precious, to an Internet where content is being created on an exponential curve.

So now comes the next phase where you start looking at content in aggregate. All your sentiment analysis, summarization, text analytics, pattern spotting...the shift to thinking about text in bulk.

This is a new way of thinking about text. It was downright radical in the 1960s (see also the Federalist papers), and only in recent years a bunch of factors have come together to make this new view of text more common.

higerordermap
Svelte (JS framework focused on efficiency)

Zig (systems programming language)

Crystal, Nim (Application programming languages with ergonomics focus)

Value types support in Java

OCaml multicore

Mini-pass compilers

Google Fuchsia

jolmg
Linux distros for phones.