this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
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It feels like every few months there's a new tech "revolution" being hyped up as the future. Besides AI, what’s the most overhyped trend in tech right now? For me, it’s the constant buzz around the metaverse.

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Carbon capture tech.

That one is still being promoted but in the end the CO2 is mainly used to get more oil out of wells.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago

Oh yeah, definitely this. The economics will probably never allow it to be deployed at a scale where it will make any sort of difference.

Instead, it is used as an excuse to not take any action on climate change which is actually realistic, albeit hard.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago

Agreed. Future carbon capture capabilities are used to justify current emissions.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Cloud. Businesses went all in on cloud under this illusion of stable costs, but costs go up and contol/support have gone down, and I'm seeing businesses spin on-prem back up.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Disagree. People are terrible using the cloud, and often are doing lift and shift instead of modernizing.

Incompetent users are the problem, not the cloud.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Completely disagree. This last March, Microsoft changed the storage limit per user on OneDrive for education from 1TB to 100GB, and users either had to delete a ton of files or pay for increased license/space. We ended up standing an on-prem file server back up shortly thereafter because we could not get our users and faculty to delete research data and could not afford to nearly double our cost expenditure. In my experience doing IT budget for years, cloud has meant that you cannot predict your yearly expenditures, Especially if you use your services that are funded in part by venture capital. Let's say you start using some cool research presentation project and suddenly the economy dips and they lose funding, the cost goes way up. Life cycle management has gone completely out the toilets in my experience with cloud products.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

Disagree. People are terrible using the cloud

"Victim-shaming"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

spin on-prem back up.

"Repatriating"

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Id go so far as to say SaaS in general. Small startups are paying $5000/month to send emails and we've come to the point where inboxes are monopolized and if you don't pay up to a cloud provider your emails end up in spam.

Take this and repeat for everything. Monopolize, ratchet up the costs, profit.

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I feel like both new cars and phones have been overhyped for a while now.

Ai is simultaneously over and under hyped depending on context.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I think the phone industry is trying very hard to look interesting but it's been a while since anybody cared? Or is it really just me?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I feel the same. I think they got to a point where there's nothing else left to improve, no interesting features to add.

The only feature I am really looking forward to is the return of removable batteries.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Answering from my Fairphone 3 & its brand new battery 😎

The improvement on cameras is nice though, but I think it's been nice enough for anyone for a while and people are just comparing color balance now.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Shit!

I came here to say AI, which I'm not allowed to.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago

Only an AI would be held back by such artificial restraints...

[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Melbourne street fashion. Literally asian style pump flip flops with socks half way up your calves. 80s tracksuit baggies. Trying REALLY hard to look like they're not trying. The city is loving it.

Edit. Whoops, didn't see TECH

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

No worries. Still interesting!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

I'm going to need pics.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 63 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

It wasn’t a very long initial question (only a few sentences), but you somehow missed the only qualifier to the whole thing, “…Besides AI,” within that short intro.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Guilty, you're right.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It is kind of misleading to leave it out of the title and hide it in the middle of the post. "Besides AI" could've easily fit in the post title.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

No, people should read an entire thought prior to responding to it.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago

There's a buzz around the metaverse? Hell, even Meta has cancelled their meta project.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Both the love for Generative AI/LLM is overhyped, but so is the hate for it. They're actually pretty good tools, they won't save the world on their own in their current state.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Small modular reactors. You see these being proposed but so far they're not being built.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The two nuclear developmemts I'm watching closest are the test molten salt reactor in Oak Ridge, TN and just recently heard about a new permit to build one for Abilene Christian University in Texas.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Quantum computing? The hype isn't so bad lately and I'm somewhat optimistic but it's worth a mention.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I feel like it's hyped just enough. It does have the potential to revolutionize computing but we have no practical applications for it at the current point in its development. There's only so much you can hype something that can't even act as a simple calculator better than a handheld calculator can.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (5 children)

5G, all phone carriers in my country promises gigabit speeds but in my tests results shows slower speeds than current 4G and coverage is worse

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

From what I understand, 5G was first about increased capacity. Increased speed was a secondary point. It optimizes how multiple users can share the same bands, and adds use of higher frequency bands that don't propogate as far. So for very high congestion areas, they can deploy smaller cells and which each can maintain higher speeds per user. I think the "faster" part was just marketing to get users to buy into the new technology. I mean I think that was the intent. Something about the implementation needs tuning though.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Not apologizing for carriers, some are really on the edge of lying to consumers, but you have to separate the 2 parts that make 5G different from 4G.

  1. Higher frequencies: means higher throughput but also shorter range (you can literally block that signal with your hand). Only works if your phone supports these higher frequency bands, you have to be in areas where the carrier has deployed cells supporting those, and you have to be close enough.
  2. Increased efficiency: mostly affects carriers, you likely won't notice the difference. Basically means, areas that were congested before with LTE will now see less congestion.

I found most 5G ads infuriating. If you know the tech, you understand whats going on and how they aren't telling the complete story. If you don't know the tech, you'll think, "Yay, higher speeds." Nope...

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Most things to do with Green Energy. Don't get me wrong, I think solar panels or wind turbines are great. I just think that most of the reported figures are technically correct but chosen to give a misleadingly positive impression of the gains.

Relevant smbc: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Other than AI, it’s automation. It’s pretty good when it works but has the same overall intent as AI (in reducing the human labor force), just on a smaller level. At least automation isn’t consistently delivering inaccurate information.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (5 children)

What sort of automation specifically are you referring to? I work in commercial building automation, which is basically tying various systems like fire/burg alarms, access control, energy/lighting management, intercoms, and everything else together using TCP/IP networking, RS-232/485, and dry-contact relay triggers everywhere. For instance, unlocking all doors and stopping elevator access when the fire alarm goes off. Or automatically disarming a burglar alarm and turning on the lights when the first person in the morning scans their badge. In that sense, it works great and has been working for decades.

If you mean robots taking all our jobs, yeah that's about 100 years out.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I was at my company's booth at a career fair earlier this week and it felt like every other student was looking for an internship in "machine learning". When I asked follow up questions about what sort of experience they'd had or projects done or what they wanted to do with it in their career, crickets.

To be fair, 2nd most popular was "CAD" which is also not a job.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Passkeys. They'll probably improve eventually but I feel like right now it's a mess.

On Android you are forced to use the default implementation, only in 14 and above can you use password managers for them.

On desktop it's somewhat less messy but you can use the system storage or a password manager extension. Some sites only let you use them for 2FA, some full login, some can't be put in a password manager from my experience and so on.

Just a mess right now.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Arm on Laptops and Desktops

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Well arm cpu’s get you insane battery life (ie. Macbook M series or new snapdragons). The architecture has not settled in yet but it will take some time

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Wtf is an "arm" in this context?

Edit: downvoting someone for asking a question is super cool, apparently.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

The Arm architecture (Arm_64) which powers Apple and Snapdragon in comparison to AMD_64 (x86_64) which powers Intel and AMD (Intel created x86 and AMD created x86_64)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'd disagree but first I want to hear your opinion on riscv

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

RiscV is a fundamentally different story then Arm, currently speaking RiscV is not there yet however I have more hope in the future of RiscV then Arm. Both hardware and software side RiscV is not ready however the idea of a fully open source computer still excites me. I understand however that I may be speaking more out of idealism and im certainly biased however I still hope that RiscV overtakes Arm.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Electric cars and bigger vehicles. The electricity storage tech is just not there yet. However, I think it's perfectly suitable for personal transportation like scooters and bikes.

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