Comments on: Top 10 technology flops

Every few years, some new technology comes along that everyone's sure will become the next big thing. And then, nothing happens. Here are my top 10.

[Len Bullard]

Ummm... with over ten years of virtual worlds online running successfully, exactly which technical obstacles do you think we have to overcome?

[billburke3]

I'm afraid you're about two to three years behind - regarding speech recognition..

It's everywhere in the Medical Industry, over 30% of Microsoft employees use it constantly for everyday tasks; Manufacturing facilities worldwide use it to control machinery.

BUT:
.
Have you, like... called any company, anywhere in the world, lately?

What is it you think you are doing when you talk to the computer voice at the other end of the telephone .. ??

.

[billburke3]

Hi S

Maybe..
This might help clear away the cobwebs .. ??

http://wirelessspeech.blogspot.com/2007/11/cnets-behind-times-but-only-by-year-or.html

Bill Burke
http://wirelessspeech.blogspot.com

[mbitterman]

It is true that one form of superconductivity has failed to live up to early expectations, but it is wrong to refer to the technology as a whole as a flop. First, the much-hyped potential of superconductivity in the late 1980s centered on the recent discovery of High Temperature Superconductors (HTS).. HTS was expected to revolutionize electric power generation and delivery, advance wireless communications, make maglev trains commercially feasible, and much, much more. This hasn't happened (yet), though progress continues and commercial uses of HTS are being reported. Low temperature superconductors (LTS), on the other hand, have been around for many decades, forming the heart of dozens of billion dollar science experiments in the form of research magnets and particle accelerators, into tens of thousands of medical and industrial uses in the form of MRI and NMR magnets, and into many thousand more applications and projects as sensors, quantum computers, and many of other devices. Together, as a class of materials, and as a community consisting of dozens of families of technologies, high and low temperature superconductivity remains an important part of technology for energy, communications, medical, industrial, computing, science, and security, sectors. The success and importance of superconductivity may require some expertise to recognize, but since when does that make something a flop? Mark Bitterman, Executive Editor, Superconductor Week (www.superconductorweek.com).