Ask HN: What are the new ideas of the last 10 (or 5) years?
Let's look at the following statements:
"Personal computers will be a big hit." "Internet search will be an extremely important and profitable business."
These statements were absolutely not trivially true at the time when personal computers started, or when Google started.
Can we collect important statements, which were not trivial 10 years ago, but seems to be fairly trivial now? (Regarding topics in which HN can be interested: mostly innovations.) A more interesting, but harder question: what happens if we take 5 years instead of 10? (Can we see clearly enough in this case? In what time-granularities can we think? What is the pace of development?)
35 comments
[ 14.5 ms ] story [ 574 ms ] threadA higher-order functional language allows higher order functions like map, filter and foldl (functions on functions). A first order language allows to define functions, but not on other functions. And a zeroth order language does not allow you to define functions (or name anything) as far as I figure.
Most software will eventually be accessed from a browser.
People will pay $15 a month in perpetuity for a single video game.
Talking to someone about your finances will be the exception, not the rule. All of your routine transactions are automated. So are many of the non-routine ones, such as opening a new account for anything smaller than a mortgage -- and we'll automate most of that, too. You'll laugh in the general direction of what people used to pay for money management, unless you're very rich or very poor.
It used to take effort to find out where you were going. It now takes effort to not know where you are.
They already are for a lot of people. Go further. They will be your primary computing, gaming, banking, music, GPS/maps, device. There are so many opportunities in mobile that it's almost silly to be working on anything else (and yet, I am working on something else).
Isn't this already done? I haven't visited or talked to anyone at a bank (other than a couple of calls to the help desk for my online banking when strange things happen) for years. Paying bills, transferring money, applying for loans smaller than a mortgage, opening and closing accounts, managing my investments. All that is trivially done on-line these days. I don't know anybody who doesn't do all their personal financial management over the internet.
That's the point of this topic, to discuss things that have been done but didn't seem obvious 5-10 years ago.
Take "Internet search will be an extremely important and profitable business", for example. But Yahoo and AltaVista were both important and profitable before Google even existed, and their existence is because of the web's lack of built-in search, which was a design decision, for example. If you'd told me 15 years ago that the most popular and profitable website in the world was a search engine making money through delivering ads, I wouldn't have been particularly surprised.
Obviously not fast enough for the moon colonies and jet-packs I was promised.
Not rethorical, please share your opinion.
That little steel thingy that wore out I can drill, file and bend by hand faster than you can CAD/CAM it up. You'll beat me if you're making many of something. But your home shop 3d printer still won't print steel.
* It is very possible that 3D printers may be able to craft some sort of metal in the future.
* You will have massive CAD sharing websites if 3D Printers were to ever become a home standard. You would be able to simply grab and print anything you need - quickly.
Your comment overlooks the fact that most people cannot drill, file or bend by hand.
The unfortunate reality is that most of us are not machinists. Much like how most of us cannot compute large mathematical equations. For this, we created a tool to make it so everyone could do. The result has grown far from that simple goal.
P2P networks will change the way of distribution of digital media.
Linux-based systems will dominate server market.
Linux become the supply of reusable software components for mobile devices.
Mobile carriers will dominate internet-access market.
OMG! I forgot facebook. Social networks as the second major place for a product placements (indirect advertisement) and brain-washing after TV.
What becomes trivial with an iPhone that's 1,000 times faster?
If instead of Crysis fps of 20, you have 20,000. If instead of 2GB RAM, you had 2TB RAM; instead of 1TB HDD, 1PB. Instead of 2 MB/sec broadband, 2 GB/sec. That's just the standard, average device - not high end.
Of course, these might be disrupted by something less powerful but more convenient. One trend is HDD being disrupted by SSD, and by the cloud.
Flat-screens probably will be disrupted by 3D/hemispherical/projectors/e-ink screens.
Ads was and is obvious now, but there's a limit to how much ads budget the world have.
A number of startups are now experimenting with various freemium or one time fee or granular pay-as-you-use.
I'm expecting this trend to go up. And maybe there will be companies that make some of these payment plans automated.
Not quite there yet, but headed that way.
edit: that's my take for something for the NEXT 5-10 years - re-reading the question, it makes me wonder if it was about things that were created on the PAST 5-10 years... doh!