3 Innovative Ideas In Technology That Ended Up Flopping

 Sometimes there is an idea so innovative and so advanced that it basically screams "I am going to be a major success!" This is a story about 3 of those ideas that for some reason let us down and ended up flopping in a spectacular way.

The Apple Newton MessagePad


The Apple Newton MessagePad 2000

The Newton MessagePad is a digital personal assistant device developed by Apple. The first MessagePad came out in 1993 and the last version in 1998. It was a revolutionary product for it's time and it is even said to be more innovative than the iPhone 3GS at the time it was released in 1993. At it's release in 1993 the Newton MessagePad was the hottest item at Macworld Expo, where it was first announced. A single device cost $900 and 50,000 devices were sold in the first 3 months. So why does practically nobody know what the MessagePad is today? The original Pads used AAA batteries and they were known for their very short lifetimes. The software also had to learn to identify the user's handwriting, which could take up to two months. It is proposed that if the device had been released with cellular data connectivity ten years later (in 2003) it would have given a big boost to the iPhone revolution (in 2007), but unfortunately it was too ahead of it's time.

TiVo


The TiVo Edge Home Set

TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed by Xperi. It was introduced in 1999 and the device provides schedules of movies and series and you can record the programs with the device to watch them later whenever you want. It is the predecessor to contemporary time shifting applications. So why is TiVo not used anymore if it was the first? TiVo had some privacy issues. The DVR downloaded data on household viewing habits. This included logs of every single thing that the household watched and also the times, channels and even when the remote was used to forward or replay a specific part of the program. This data was used for research and was also sold to advertising companies to make specific commercials that would attract more people. In 2005 TiVo also began using pop-up advertisements, that drew heavy criticism from subscribers, who had already paid for the service. After two years TiVo changed their pop-up ad system so that if the commercials skipped had a certain ad in it, the ad would be displayed as a pop-up ad during the forwarding.

Google Glass

Google Glass Explorer Edition

Google Glass is an optical head-mounted display, that was developed by Google X. The device became available to the public in 2014. At the time of it's announcement in 2012 it was seen as a revolutionary advancement in technology that would change how people see the world. If the initial promise was to augment reality and give people thrilling experiences from the comfort of their home, the reality turned out to be very different. Instead of augmenting reality Glass simply supplemented it with applications that we have on our smartphones. The device received even more criticism for it's battery life, which was only 3-5 hours. Also the device brought privacy concerns, because people using Glass could record whenever they wanted and therefore record someone without their permission. Some safety concerns were also raised, as driving with the device on your head could obstruct your view and steer your attention away from the road.

References:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad
  • https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/64664-apple-newton-messagepad/
  • https://www.cultofmac.com/464607/today-in-apple-history-apples-first-great-messagepad/
  • https://www.cultofmac.com/473067/today-apple-history-newton-messagepad-2000/
  • http://interface-experience.org/objects/apple-newton-messagepad-120/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo
  • https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/TiVo
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo_Inc.
  • https://www.techhive.com/article/3453842/tivo-edge-review.html
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass
  • https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052115/how-why-google-glass-failed.asp
  • https://www.wordstream.com/google-glass
  • https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-glass/

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