Hacker News Reader

Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused by the title, what does this have to do with atoms, apart from the rather undistinguishing fact that its product and indeed its founders are made from them?

View on HN

I think it's jargon to distinguish the Glif's niche from the usual 'startup' fair (software development, etc.)

Yep. Consider January's Wired magazine feature titled In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms are the new Bits."

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution

Now I'm getting tired of those cliches e.g "X is the new Y" and the like. Where can I get some journalism that doesn't fall for this?

Fall for what? The temptation to express ideas using common memes? Good luck finding any publication where no writer ever gets lazy and uses cliched forms of expression. (Also, if you're looking for really engineer-friendly technical writing, Wired is probably not the place to turn.)

That's unfortunate, because I assumed it was something nano-related, which sounded much more exciting than... uhh, rubber iPhone covers or whatever this is.

I'm fairly sure this refers to the use of 3D printing to refine the design, and even prototypes to temporarily give to people who donated $50 before the final production has run. It's not so clearly defined in the article, but I believe that the two points it tries to make are that without

1- 3D printing, (production with "atoms") and

2- social fundraising

such business are unlikely be as easy to start. They would require access to substantially more funds and manufacturing equipment.

Edit: They try to tie the social fundraising in to the "atoms" theme by referencing electrons, but it falls a bit flat.

Not hard to get: atoms are smaller than nano which is smaller than startups.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com