Don't Believe the Hype: The 21 Biggest Technology Flops

ComputerWorld ^ | 04 April 2007 | David Haskin

[ShadowAce]

[randog]

That was a fun walk down memory lane.

[ShadowAce]

Yeah—there were a few items there that I had forgotten about.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I wish I hadn't sunk all my life's savings investing in New Coke :(

/I was about 8, and bought a can....

[Tijeras_Slim]

[RebelBanker]

I was thinking of Betamax...

[ShadowAce]

Betamax was a flop only in marketing.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Then the recording industry became concerned that DAT would encourage piracy because it could be used to make near-perfect digital copies of recorded music. The industry convinced Congress to pass the Audio Home Recording Act in 1992, which required strong -- some might say Draconian -- copy protection for DAT.

This is actually an example of content providers crippling a technology to the point where consumers no longer find it worthwhile. We'll never know whether DAT on it's own merits would have been a flop.

[massgopguy]

I’d argue that speech recognition was a flop. It depends on what the intended purpose was vs the application we have now. Back in 1991 I worked for a 3rd Party Technical services company. The major vendor of Electronic Pre-Press Systems, ATEX had a problem with its keyboards and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. One of the remedies was Dragon Dictate which we interfaced with the ATEX Operating system. Dragon Dictate went through some improvements in its recognition of utterances, especially those in say....Arabic. It is now owned by Nuance. The new product is DragonNet and is the backbone for Carnivore and Echelon.

[Holicheese]

Current TV will be on that heap in a year or so!

[RadioAstronomer]

I have VR glasses, a matchbox sized bluetooth laser projection keyboard, and an OQO pocket computer with WiFi. I go to an internet cafe, put on the glasses boot the computer (uses full up version of Xp Pro) and light up the laser keyboard, wham - surfing and posting on the web with a fullup computer on a 70” screen I can fit in my pocket.

How cool is that. :-)

[RadioAstronomer]

Yup. Why I just bought a Pioneer 50” HD plasma. :-)

[martin_fierro]

Flooz's commercials featuring Whoopi Goldberg received the most attention.

Floozy.

[Publius Valerius]

DAT survived a while for professional recording applications

Like Betamax, this is still around in the professional world because it is simply a superior product. Back when I worked in radio, we did everything on DAT or Minidisc.

But I liked the Apple Newton. Some of those are still on eBay, but they sure do go for way more than they are worth.

[Smogger]

I will throw in the Apple IIGS.

A almost bought one of those boondoggles. Fortunately, they were too expensive and I got an Amiga 500 instead.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Oh, my.

How ... distasteful.

[RebelBanker]

Betamax was a flop only in marketing.

Well it lost the "format war" to VHS, so people stopped making Beta tapes or players. I suppose you could argue that it was not really a flop, but was simply displaced by a similar product. I still remember 8-tracks, which were moderately successful for a while ;-)

[js1138]

I’m thinking Windows Vista may join Lisa and NeXT as a flop that will be replaced by something similar but not blighted by initial ridicule. Economic pressure seems to have compelled MS to release Vista a couple of years before it is ready.

[ryan71]

The Segway was the biggest flop.

“IT” will never come close to living up to all the hype.

“IT” will not “change the way cities are designed”.