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Comment by c-slice | Hacker News Reader

I think we just reached peak smartphone. What's next?

VAR - Virtual/Augmented Reality.

Also, i'm hoping my future glasses have some kind of mechanism built in that will let me text with my mind... even if that means thinking about moving shapes or colors or something to do it.

VR is still about 10 years away before it moves into the mainstream. Currently it's just looking like a gaming accessory and has a long way to go before it's much more

But VR/augmented reality is still the next big thing. The demand in commerce and advertising is for more and more invasive media, I'd say any prediction towards this goal is dead on. It's just a matter of finding well priced, socially acceptable gear.

Nope, you're wrong. Do you think smartphone sales are going to decrease this year?

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/6-1b-smartphone-users-globa...

http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-sales-forecast-201...

According to all the VCs in my Twitter feed: chatbots.

Chatbots are a novelty. They will come and go faster than Pepsi Clear. I don't see them being big headlines next year, and at most, two years from now.

Some combination of wearables, AR/VR, IoT, and consumer 3D printing.

The thing is a) those are all a few years out, b) they're interconnected. VR will happen first because it's got an obvious path to a large consumer base. That will lay groundwork for AR, which is probably the actual Next Big Thing. Wearables/IoT/3D printing are really an extension of the miniaturization/customization of longstanding technologies, but are all experiencing severe growing pains (wearables : size/batteries, IoT : cost, 3D Printing : materials).

I agree about VR and AR.

As for the rest: wearables hadn't had a really strong use case - so it's either a niche or a fashion/status object - and maybe that's what will limit growth even when size/batteries gets solved ?

IOT: cost is definitely a huge barrier, but will it be that huge deal ? or just another feature in the stuff we already buy - sold to us through the same big companies, with a few specialized products ?

And 3D printing - don't you think a 1-day Amazon 3 printing with the most optimal processes will win, for most consumers ?

I'm with you on wearables - I've been trying to think of mass-market use cases for at least a year now, but I just can't find anything that's appealing outside of niche markets like disabilities and medical monitoring.

As for 3D printing, the biggest problem in my opinion is modeling, not printing itself. The cost of stereolithography printers is finally dropping, and extrusion printers are getting easier to use, but actually printing things is useless unless you have a model you can print. Most people just don't want to spend the time or effort to create a model, especially when you can walk into a store and get a higher quality item that's professionally designed and manufactured for dirt cheap.

I really don't see 3d printing going anywhere. What are you really going to print?

Dildos, which will be thrown away in post-orgasmal shame and reprinted a day later

What happens if there's a pause between the next big thing and now? What if technology effecting people's lives starts to slow? Interesting (for me at least) to think about.

More importantly in this context, will Apple be the company to bring it to us? Is it the watch? Interesting point for the company.

Nonputing. Ubiquitous invisible (hopefully secure).

Gaming console ?

VR, Drones, self-driving cars, of course, everything controlled by smartphones.

Funny enough, most VR projection models use gaming consoles as the low point of estimating units a few years from now.

I want to bet on sunglass sized AR, but it seems like we'll need some material science revolutions to shrink down the requisite hardware to have the kind of useful experience is imagine

AR and VR should become one, and hardware shall be fully untetherd, extremely powerful and energy efficient.

A long way to go, but we'll be there eventually :)

It's more like power and heat that are the problem, not size. Chips are pretty small.

no phones

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