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Technology Disasters

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CIOL Writers
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Each passing day begets new technology into this world to make our lives simpler and comfortable; allowing us to do things more swiftly and efficiently. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes, things get complicated and messy too, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals which cost much more than their worth. Reminds me sometimes of T.S. Eliot’s lines:

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Following are some of the creations which could have made a lot of impact with their invention but ended up accomplishing nothing.

#CueCat barcode Reader(2000)

A cat-shaped handheld barcode reader that was released just before this millennium was essentially designed to read the magazine barcode or a product barcode and then related information about the topic on the internet, e.g. Find the website of a magazine.

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CueCat-3

Couldn’t they just think that the customer would rather just type the URL of the website , than putting efforts to scan and connecting the USB device for such a simple thing.

This product did receive a lot of support from the likes of Forbes and Wired in the beginning, but that didn’t stop the CueCat from being uncued.

#Oakley Thump Sunglasses (2007)

Oakley Thump Pro

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In 2007, Oakley came up with Thump Sunglasses fitted with Google’s glass that combined shades and an MP3 player, the first audio player built into sunglasses.

The problem with this gadget was that it looked ugly and the audio controls were difficult to use. It had a 256 MB flash memory and was priced at $495. Even celebrity endorsement couldn’t get this product many sales.

#OQO Model 01 (2004)

OQO Model 01 was launched with a bang. The power of Windows in the palm of your hand. That was the promise it made running Windows XP on a 5-inch display. This mobile Internet device was indeed nifty, offering a slide-down thumb keyboard and a desktop dock.

ocq model

Alas, a very chunky design- too thick, serious heat and noise issues and short battery life with a price tag of $1,999 was too much, even for well-heeled mobile executives.

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#Dell Streak (2010)

I wouldn’t lie. I wanted to buy this back then. It could well be called precursor to modern phablets. But some Phablets might just take offence. The Streak was so comically large that AllThingsD's Kara Swisher called it a waffle on stage at the D8 conference. The Streak also suffered from a relatively low-resolution display (800 x 480 pixels) and ran dated Android 1.6 software. A 7-inch follow-up with abysmal battery life sealed this product line's fate.

dell streak

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#Sharp RD3D (2003)

Between the idea/and the reality/ Between the motion/And the act/ Falls the Shadow.

3D

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Eliot is flowing effortlessly down my hand today.

RD3D sealed everything for Sharp’s laptop market in the U.S. soon after its launch. For a whopping $3,300, this 15-inch notebook was the first to display 3D content without the aid of glasses. Setting aside the eye strain, the RD3D's dismal performance with 3D enabled and preposterous narrow viewing angles made this laptop fall flat on its face. Other companies would try to pick up where Sharp left off, including Nvidia and Toshiba, but they failed, too.

This is the way the world ends

    Not with a bang but a whimper.

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