Ask HN: What is the coolest tech progress outside AI? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the coolest tech progress outside AI?

16 pointsvantareed9 comments

AI and agents are taking up most of the oxygen lately.

What recent non-AI technology progress are you excited about, and why?

I would say that lots of interesting things are happening in biotech, and these things are slowly building critical mass, similar to what happened in computer hardware during the period 1970-2000.

Genomic platforms are now able to capture multiple measurements (e.g. RNA and chromatin openness) from single cells in large tissue slices/massive perturbation experiments.

Once time gets baked into the equation, we will be able to build better models of systems biology. However, human trials will still be a major bottleneck.

Definitely very interesting what is happening in that space. I just read a few days ago about this Finnish startup that is able produce amino-complete protein out of CO2 using a microbiome: https://www.noemamag.com/making-food-out-of-thin-air/ The idea of being able to lab-grow nutrient dense food is generally exciting, I just hope there won't be too much backlash from society and farmers.

I would said electricity generation, Solar+Energy Storage will be the solution of human future in the coming 20 years.

I am developing a real-time software acceleration engine that enables high-end equipment-level brainwave processing, signal detection, and noise removal on general-purpose chips. My goal is to overcome hardware limitations through software, enabling highly efficient biosignal processing.

It looks like desktop 5 axis CNC will soon be a consumer product. I really miss making gears.

I'm hoping Sam Zeloof, and AtomicSemi, comes through with his low cost desktop chip factory.

I would say quantum computing. It's one area you can't just tell an LLM to solve for you (yet, until the material and solutions are out there of course).

Agricultural tech

because well life start from that right?

Solar and batteries are cracking along. It's much reported but will change things for the better.

NFT development is still going strong! They've almost found a real use for them /s

jk jk they're still nonsense, aren't you glad HN isn't flooded with NFT and blockchain noise anymore?

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