I find this new poll to be very innovative. Multiple choice tick boxes!

I see no buttons at all or any link that says "take poll here". Do you have to register/login first? If so, a note to AC's telling them (us) so might be nice.

Its really sad how expensive a quality HVAC thermostat system is. I found one Honeywell system that would actually maybe kinda do something smart, but it would be in the thousands of dollars price point, and intended for commercial applications.

What is needed is:

A system of thermostats that all talk to each other and wirelessly control floor vents. So if the room where the thermostat is is not representative of the whole house, additional thermostats can be paired to give the system more data points to consider. With optional computer controlled vents, the system can further be optimized.

This was my hope for Nest. But years later, there has been no improvement. there is no algorithm that will solve a problem for which there is only incomplete input data.

Anybody here in the good old US of A knows what a royal pain in the ass it can be dealing with the government. The web presence of various agencies seems to be stuck in 1998, when you could get information from a site but not do anything with it. At this point the entire trademark process should be doable online, but it very much isn't. That and taxes. There's gotta be a better way. We shouldn't needaccountants and or software to file our taxes. Has anybody had similar difficulties with Uncle Sam?

Home heating/cooling/management tech - Heat-pumps are coming along nicely, but are still too rare and much too expensive at the low-end. I can get a window A/C unit for maybe $120, and could install it BACKWARDS with some small modifications (power source and thermostat), but it's rare to find a unit that does heating and cooling under $600... Most anything cheaper than that is "supplemental heat", which means they just jammed a space-heater (coils) inside a window A/C unit.
Cheapest real heat-pump I've found is: This $470 Frigidaire FFRH0822R1.

TV/Radio/Movies - The advance of technology is causing fundamental shifts we can just start to see now, but it will take some time to shake-out. Lower cost of production, lower costs of delivery, and more outlets for distribution are going to have huge effects. I'm glad there's plenty of pretty good older content out there now, to bridge the gap as everybody tries to figure it out.

Communications - I think we've got that covered. Remember back when ham was popular as an alternative to astronomically expensive international phone calls? Now a $20 cell phone can jump on WiFi and make free international phone calls to and from anywhere in the world.

Govt issues (record keeping, healthcare) - Everybody hates taxes, and the code is due for a massive overhaul to make the super-rich pay a fair percentage, and make the amount owed a far simpler formula that eliminates the hours and billions spent on accountants. But there's nothing innovative in that, just proper governance. In general, I get nervous when the government starts "innovating"... The NSA has gotten far too "innovative" in recent years for my taste.

Public transportation systems - I anxiously await Futurama-style people-mover tubes. However, self-driving cars combined with all-electric propulsion could be pretty efficient, quicker and very comfortable. Just imagine a self-driving motorhome with batteries and rooftop solar panels... You could just wake-up, still at home, but in a new city every day.

Banking systems - We're starting to see things like micro-loans, pay-by-cell phone, etc. But "innovation" to them, is just more sneaky ways to get more money out of unsuspecting people. I'd rather they didn't "innovate" like that much if at all...

Safety/Security, incl. 'anti-terrorism' - We're a small step away from everybody recording everything that happens, everywhere, all the time. It will become considerably harder to get away with any crimes. Combined with everyone's whereabouts at all times of day/night being on-record at the phone company, law enforcement seems to have a big change looming.

Education - Technology doesn't help without a change in culture. Forcing students to read Moby Dick on a tablet won't make it any more relevant to kid's lives, today. Huge amounts of money were spent to get TVs and VCRs in every classroom, only to be used to watch Hollywood films when the teacher feels like taking a break. Meanwhile, students are forced to read famous plays, be told about world events that happened on-camera, read about physics/biology/chemistry when video would get so much more across more quickly, etc., etc. And more recently, lots of money spent on computers that are largely off-limits to students, locked-down to the point that they might just as well be replaced with electronic typewriters or word processors. The system would be better served to use that money on teacher salaries, and migrate away from mostly attendance-based grading.

The world has a crisis of energy that we are currently throwing resources at, but eventually we will have to pay the piper. Cutting waste is a big part of it, but we will need a long term source of energy once fossil fuels become harder to extract.

Finishing it would be a good start. How about some help files? Uninstall script would be appreciated. Let's all play nice in the sandpit, eh?