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

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

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

13 points | by vantareed 1 day ago

10 comments

  • mikewarot 2 hours ago
    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.

  • nextos 1 day ago
    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.

    • schthms 16 hours ago
      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.
  • hgsocket 5 hours ago
    Agricultural tech

    because well life start from that right?

  • StahlGuo 1 day ago
    I would said electricity generation, Solar+Energy Storage will be the solution of human future in the coming 20 years.
  • PJHkorea 1 day ago
    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.
  • progforlyfe 1 day ago
    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).
  • tim333 1 day ago
    Solar and batteries are cracking along. It's much reported but will change things for the better.
  • aurenvale 1 day ago
    [flagged]
  • vantareed 1 day ago
    [flagged]
  • digitaltinfoil 1 day ago
    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?