So, yeah.. not the first time for this... but the landscape changes, technological advances makes things that seemed impossible 6 months ago start to seem possible....

So, let's say there was a company that was pretty good at coming up with relatively new devices that end up becoming gold standard for a whole me-too market segment, and these items have a way of becoming ubiquitous to the point that we can barely remember what life was like before them.
And let's say that company was going to 'do it again...'

Right now, in August of 2013, what would that product be that's currently missing from our lives, and for which the technology was too experimental to be considered for mass-production/portability a year or two ago?
You get to pick =one-.

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New forum user map 8/2015: [www.zeemaps.com]

Some new kind of watch?

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Where is there dignity unless there is also honesty? - Cicero

i need something that attaches to my face

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A version of Outlook for Mac that works reasonably well.

Something that will at least make me look young enough to date some of the women I dance with.
Most of them, I'm old enough to be their father's older brother.

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And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Western Massachusetts

Decent battery for any smartphone would be a start.

Maybe it'll be another Apple eMate 300!
Or as revolutionary as my CUBE.

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the_poochies
Decent battery for any smartphone would be a start.

Well, thanks for playing. So some sort of new technology for portable device powering.


Mine: A display that expands big but stores/travels small.
There was an episode of The Journeyman that was built around a paper-thin, foldable LCD display revolutionizing the way people do things, if anyone remembers that show.
And I thought I read recently that someone was working on this...

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New forum user map 8/2015: [www.zeemaps.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2013 10:06PM by Black.

Some way to have cheaper cable tv.

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digby
Maybe it'll be another Apple eMate 300!
Or as revolutionary as my CUBE.

I actually liked the idea of the eMate. Never got to use one. I bet I would have loved it.

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iaJim
Some way to have cheaper cable tv.

We'd be in that long line over several days. We'd have to bring a grill out there and some games to pass the time.

Super capacitor or fuel cell that makes laptops/phones/cars last for two weeks and recharge in 30 seconds.

$400 glasses that project 3d 4k screens inside your eyes.

Accurate spam/advertising filtering for when you walk around a mass with your 3d 4k glasses.

Encryption that allows easy and ubiquitous secure communications with fingerprint/retina passwords.

An easily upgradeable and inexpensive pizza box Mac.

AI that prevents "that aunt/uncle" from clicking on obvious scams.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

>>$400 glasses that project 3d 4k screens inside your eyes.

if laser beams are going to be on my eyelids, i want them aimed both inward AND outward!

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Filliam H. Muffman
$400 glasses that project 3d 4k screens inside your eyes.

I don't know why you want them to cost $400 and not $150, but yeah, I see this as the need that's awaiting the technology; the sacrifice of a small screen in order to facilitate portability ends up being barely acceptable.

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New forum user map 8/2015: [www.zeemaps.com]

Quote
Black

Quote
Filliam H. Muffman
$400 glasses that project 3d 4k screens inside your eyes.

I don't know why you want them to cost $400 and not $150...

The $150 version is only 1080.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Modular, underground atomic electric-power plant, small enough (and cheap enough) for a single-family home.

If this seems fanciful, I've seen reports of modular designs suitable for small towns or even large businesses: self-maintaining, safe, serviced once a decade or so. Down the road they may even get small enough for homes. Don't have links at the moment.

/Mr Lynn

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"Hillbilly at Harvard"
Honky-tonk Country and Bluegrass
Founded in 1948 by Pappy Ben Minnich
Saturdays 9am - 11am Eastern
WHRB-FM, Cambridge, MA
Streaming at [www.WHRB.org]
Be there!
The HAH weblog: [hillbillyatharvard.wordpress.com]

Topical weblog: [walkingcreekworld.wordpress.com]

On the river in Saxonville.

Loved Journeyman.

And it was another of those shows where a foreigner was masquerading as a 'Merican. And Robert Taylor (not of The Detectives) of Longmire is an Aussie!

What the hell is DHS good for? Absolute nothin'! I'll say it again...

I *need* TV display glasses that *actually* subtend the tiny screens to look like 52" display viewed from 7'.

I *need* a reliable, voice-controlled home-control system for lights, heat, A/C, and TV.

I *need* high-quality wireless headphones-- good range, good looking, good build quality, and great sound.

I *need* small, wireless earbuds that offer at least 30db sound isolation (read: passive) and can be worn comfortably under my motorcycle helmet.

I *need* a camera, say similar to the SX40/50 with a built-in laser rangefinder. Also a 10x rifle scope with the same.

And I'm still waiting for foldable displays and dimmable windows. I read about them in Popular Science year and year and year ago. They've made the news again recently, but almost qualify for vaporware.

Oh, and a trash receptacle that instantly converts trash and garbage to electrical engergy. It wouldn't have to be a 100% conversion because of the whole "...enough energy in a grain of sand..." thing. It could double as a space heater.

And a replicator. "Nestlés, hot. WIth marshmallows!"

And nanites that you swallow in a capsule that hunt down and kill cancer cells and remove plaque. A shrunken medical vessel inside me with Raquel on board would do in a pinch, but I'd much rather have the nanites (as long as they behave) and be inside Ms. Welch.

And one of those gizmos that Dr. Crusher attaches to Picard to give him eight hours sleep. (I assume the time is adjustable.)

And an external CMR that interfaces through inductance so no surgery is needed.

And a Buck Rogers jet pack

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I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

Solar panel rooftop replacements that meet every town's code, are easy to install, survive weather, and both store and feed electricity into the grid. And last 50 years. And preferably are owned by a private company that 'pays' homeowners to 'lease' their rooftops with a percentage of the proceeds.

Won't need no buried newkulear stuff if we use that big 'ol nuclear fusion thingy in the sky.

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cbelt3
Solar panel rooftop replacements that meet every town's code, are easy to install, survive weather, and both store and feed electricity into the grid. And last 50 years. And preferably are owned by a private company that 'pays' homeowners to 'lease' their rooftops with a percentage of the proceeds.

Won't need no buried newkulear stuff if we use that big 'ol nuclear fusion thingy in the sky.

YES! YES! YES!

A PRACTICAL flying car.

I'm going to go along with the battery/solar panel type thing. Small, rechargeable batteries that will last at least 10x longer than current batteries for electronic devices. Ditto for electric cars. And solar panels that can efficiently provide enough electricity so that we can eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.

Batteries have certainly gotten better, but still have a long ways to go to conveniently and economically store the amounts of energy needed to run households (or even pure-electric vehicles). I suspect we are near the limits of chemical methods of storing electricity. What's needed is a new kind of battery.

How about a living gel, made up of the kind of cells that electric eels and rays use to create currents? Or some yet-to-be-devised way of using quantum mechanics?

The problem with solar energy panels is that solar radiation is episodic, often feeble (e.g. in northern latitudes), or non-existent (behind clouds, and of course at night). I think small, modular atomic generators will be a much more flexible, easily installed, reliable, and simple solution. They will not only free you from 'the grid', they'll free you from the natural-gas pipe or from the oil delivery truck, and from outages from storms. Every five or ten years the Atomod company will come and exchange your old module for a new one. That's it.

Of course, it sounds implausible now. That's why it'll be a "revolutionary product."

/Mr Lynn