[dragontamer]

It probably will be something more like the Kinect: a few products come out that aren't useful at all.

It took decades before people figured out Aluminum was actually useful for things for example. It was a chemical curiosity for the later-half of the 1800s (hmm, this is a cheap metal that is found everywhere. But its weaker than steel, what should we use it for?)

Just because you discover something useful doesn't mean you figure out what to do with it.

[phreeza]

Aluminum (metal, not ore) was actually extremely expensive until the discovery of the electrolytic Hall–Héroult process ca 1880.

[Florin_Andrei]

Yup. The reason why it was not used for a long time is that it was hard to make. Aluminum is a very reactive metal; when combined with oxygen or other stuff, it sits at the bottom of a deep pit of energy. It takes a lot of effort to get it out of there. The electrolytic process is basically a brute-force approach: throw enough energy at anything, and it will start moving eventually.

Napoleon III had his fancy-dinner utensils made from aluminum, for those occasions when gold did not seem lavish enough. And then cheap manufacturing was invented, and the rest is history.

[Retric]

The Washington Monument is capped with Aluminum because at the time it was more expensive than gold to refine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument#Aluminum_a...