Ask HN: What cutting-edge technology do you use?

Software-defined radios - you can do absolutely insane things with these. Listen to multiple radio stations as once, listen to ham radio, capture live images of the earth from geostationary satellites, watch live airplane traffic, listen to maritime radio, ...try to listen to signals using the moon as a reflector.., detect GPS jammers..., sync 5 of them to the same clock source and use them as a passive radar array to track objects' movements through walls..... use them for backyard radio astronomy to detect the ion trails due to the hydrogen emission line of blazing meteorites.... this shit is cheap too the most common basic model is like only 20 bucks.

Haskell

Jax / Awkward Array

Topological Data Analysis

Cocalc

CLIP

gitpod / vscodeweb / github codespaces

CodeQL

DDSP

mathlib

neovim

language-server-protocol

adafruit feather m0

rr

linear logic

tmux

I run a site that gives sports betting tips. I use the text generation to automatically builds narratives for thousands of games a day. I use affiliate programs with online betting sites and pull 80k/yr just with AI text ( started 4k been doubling each year)

Or maybe this is mainstream already and i don't know.

Microsoft Hololens 2: I use one for work, and it's absolutely incredible. It's an augmented reality headset with built-in hand tracking, so you interact with the holograms by touching them with your hands. You mentioned "Tony Stark" technology, and it really is like the hologram computer he uses. When you look down at your hands, you see a Windows logo appears on your wrist (it follows your wrist due to the hand tracking). When you tap on the Windows icon on your wrist, a start menu appears in front of you, and you can choose an AR app to launch by tapping it with your finger. These apps can be full 3D experiences (like ones created with Unity) or they can be 2D apps where you can place 2D windows around you (like the built-in Edge browser app). These headsets are over $3K, so they're currently used for high-end niche use cases that justify that investment. For example, some of my customers use them to show 3D instructions to technicians for aerospace manufacturing. However, from using the Hololens 2, it's clear to me that AR will inevitably become a major computing platform once the price is reduced. My guess is that we will start to see that in 6 - 10 years.

Edge computing for machine learning. Instead of running ML models on the cloud, I train them on user's device, ask these devices to offload computation between each other and give me the best performance out there. One good example is recommendations that work offline for you. Imagine you are listening to spotify in offline mode (with you downloaded playlist) and recommendations adapt accordingly even without internet!

I built out the library for these myself, checkout https://github.com/NimbleEdge/RecoEdge

Fully controllable pocket computers.

Surprisingly, the tech has been there since the '90s, but never really caught up. Then it went into a weird walled garden direction with mobile phones that often work against you.

Pocket computers are still sometimes janky, like Linux phones are, but having access to all the software and permissions is an unparalleled power.

Not ones I use, but would like to use…..

1. Solid state Lithium battery - safer, and denser power than the li-ion batteries of today. https://youtu.be/Jlt8_z86F-o

2. Well, for the goodness of planet earth - Nuclear Fusion reactor to generate power.

> What technology do you use today that is far from mainstream?

Pen and paper. ;)

Also, I have been using an agenda with on the left side the week, and on the right side notes for the last 10 years. It has a special holder for a pen, contains some information on units, UTC differences, a world map, holidays, year overview, and much more. This is very useful. At work I only have to carry around my agenda. It contains all information that you need directly in meetings. And I can take notes on the right side that I can process (digitally) when I'm back at my desk.

Changing the perspective a little... A few years ago, we applied client-side applications and edge computing for chicken farmers in Mozambique. https://www.quantisan.com/facebook-loving-farmers-of-mozambi...

That was a fun side project but I got ahead of myself in the tech and failed on finding a product-market fit.

The company I work for have built a form of indoor positioning system using the Earth’s magnetic field. We are currently deploying it to Frankfurt Airport to aid connecting passengers in travelling from gate to gate for certain airlines.

Electronic shifters on my bike. Absolutely love them, the gears never go out of true. Every shift is exactly the same, no variation at all. I ride most days 10km-30km and I charge once a month

Gave me a lot more confidence in my drivetrain.

I use program synthesis - cutting edge technology from, I think, the 70s?

Scala 3

A Leatherman Kick.

for me it's a spatial web browser.

D2 steel