Update: After reader feedback, we've added five additional products. Thanks for all the comments.
Here we are just days away from closing out the first decade of the 21st century, which means a lot of publications are in look-back mode, taking stock of all the good--and bad--things that happened over the last 10 years.
The Gizmondo in its heyday.
(Credit: ImageShack)Before we get to the list, let's get the parameters straight. This isn't a list of all the most spectacular tech failures. I chose to exclude dot-coms, corporate debacles (AOL-Time Warner), search engines (i.e., Cuil), and assorted other Web 2.0 flame outs (I'll let Webware handle that). No, this is a roundup of gear, the stuff that turns on and off, the stuff I've been covering for almost 10 years at CNET (yes, I started in 2000).
It's also important to define just what a flop is. In my book it's simply something that was really hyped but didn't live up to its promise or expectations. And while the word "flop" has a negative connotation, we here at CNET have a lot admiration for the designers, engineers, and everybody else who put their heart and soul into bringing these products and technologies to the world. Some of them didn't deserve their fates. They were ahead of their time or just marketed poorly. Whatever the case, we appreciate the vision, risk taking, and hard work that went into creating these things.
But enough sentimentality (I meant it, really). Let's get to the biggest tech flops of the decade. If you disagree with any of them or have more to suggest, please post a comment. If we missed any clear candidates, we'll modify the list.
Click on any image to start the slideshow. (Note: The list is in chronological order).
More:
Nvidia's second quarter business update, released Wednesday, was mostly bad news for the company. But there's potentially bad news for consumers, too. Nvidia revealed plans to take a $150 million to $200 million charge to cover anticipated repair and return costs arising from a "weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems."
The release goes on to explain that the cards aren't faulty on their own, but that the materials have demonstrated higher-than-normal failure rates in combination with other components in certain laptop configurations. (Clear as mud, no?) According to a follow-up from the IDG News Service, the problem is associated with the laptops' thermal design; Nvidia has reportedly provided laptop manufacturers with a driver that will cause system fans to start operating sooner in hopes of mitigating the problem.
Which manufacturers got the driver? Good question. The company seems determined to avoid listing the specific GPUs affected or the manufacturers whose laptops have shown problems. I've contacted Nvidia to see if we can get any more information, and I'll post an update when I hear back.
Meanwhile, let me know in the comments if you've had temperature-related issues with an Nvidia card in your laptop. Be sure to include your laptop model number--maybe we can find a pattern.
Update: I heard back from Nvidia representative Calisa Cole, who said that obligations to customers (i.e., manufacturers) prevent them from providing specifics about the models affected. But she did confirm the driver changes, saying, "We have switched production to a more robust die/package material set and are working proactively with our OEM partners to develop system management software to provide better thermal management to the GPU."
A year never goes by without someone inventing something hilariously useless. Many of these travesties tried to reinvent the wheel but were plagued by huge dollops of fail. And when companies get desperate, horrendous products hit the mass market and produce a true comedy of errors.
Over the next 10 pages, we'll take you on a guided tour of our picks of the bunch--not a definitive guide to technological idiocy. On each page is a piece of technology replete with oodles of fail. There's no excuse any more for wasting millions of dollars of development on products so offensively useless, so fundamentally unlikable, it's painful to even acknowledge their existence.
We start our journey with an electric car that sucked so badly it was deemed too dangerous to allow on roads. Click here for more.
(Source: Crave UK)
You would think the iPhone's touch screen--the hallmark of the whole dang thing--would last for more than five months. Well, think again.
After a particularly wet bike ride on Saturday here in the Bay Area, my iPhone got somewhat damp. (You know, the type of rain that soaks through a coat but doesn't ruin anything.) After the ride, I wanted to text people and noticed the top row of the text keyboard was not responding. I had to press, no squish, down to get a letter. And the cursor would flip out. And the screen looked bad when I did so, just like when you press down on an LCD screen too hard.
After a reset, power-cycle and testing out different touch-based functions (aren't they all?), I was convinced I needed to get help at the Apple store. I made an appointment online for the next day. (All the Saturday appointments were gone by the time I looked online.)
The next day, I found out I wasn't the only one who had a "dead zone" on their screen. The guy next to me at the Genius Bar had the same problem. After attempting a restore, the Apple clerk (who asked me to write that customer service was fast and efficient--it wasn't) brought out a white box (a coffin I thought?) with a new iPhone in it. The clerk said Apple would exchange my phone, and there'd be no charge. It was exactly as I had expected.
The clerk swapped my SIM card out, with a pin conveniently stored in his name tag, and I was on my way, after half an hour.
What surprised was was how all of my settings had been "restored"--ringtones, photos, SMS messages, IMAP settings. The iPhone was activated by AT&T in seconds, the transfer of all the junk on my iPhone took about 30 minutes. Not too bad.
The downsides: the process was a bit of a pain and the restore missed a few pictures I took. (I have to re-assign all the pictures to particular contacts again.) Also, it's a little distressing that such an integral feature failed after five months. The clerk who helped me did say that the technology was very new, and that, as an early adopter, I should have expected as such.
Hmmm.
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