CES is where we go for the next new technology and concept, and where the failed ventures end up. Smartphones go off the rails, software doesn’t take off at all.
Perhaps the worst tech catastrophe of all time is Theranos and Zeo, blood test brands made popular through phony advertising or release prematurely. Both are testaments to the risk of untruths or products launched too quickly without proper testing and approvals.
Betamax
It’s not only the iPhone and iPad, but phones of all time have failed in some spectacular fashion. Some are cult hits, some still puzzling.
Sony’s Betamax videotape format was supposed to be a better solution than VHS, but it flopped – perhaps on the list of greatest tech disasters of all time.
Betamax was a proprietary technology and only companies who acquired the rights could produce machines and tapes for it – that panned out consumers’ options and, in turn, raised prices.
Betamax also drew flack for small cassettes with scant tape duration (60 minutes, 90 with thin tape), meaning films required two cassettes to watch and higher movie prices for consumers. Because of the VHS manufacturers’ effective marketing, and because consumer demands over technical features of rivals. This war of format was definitely won by VHS!
Apple Newton
It’s all too easy for hyperconnectivity today to make one technology glitch the size of a rock, and it can cost businesses millions and ruin their brands. But not all tech fails last forever; sometimes, companies regain some of their losses later when things are better or attitudes shift.
Apple Newton was a massive letdown, because its efforts at being a smartphone before Wi-Fi was mainstream killed sales, and the handwriting recognition software it came preinstalled wasn’t always reliable.
Though the Newton never caught on, many of its finest engineers worked on a host of other products – iPhone, iPad – many of which still run on its ARM processors engineered specifically for its size and power efficiency. Listen to Niall Firth of MIT Technology Review discuss its worst tech fails!
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Dreamcast could have been an industry juggernaut, boasting Sonic the Hedgehog, Shenmue and Crazy Taxi but lost in the shuffle because of bad ads, no hits and a fiddly controller – it survived just two years, then was eclipsed by Sony’s Playstation 2.
What the Dreamcast didn’t have was DVD playback. This was very disappointing to gamers considering you could have had a PS2 for cheaper. And, by 1999, its own GD-ROM media was out of date, as DVDs had started to take off.
The products that fail is sometimes a lack of anything intrinsic about the tech product itself, but simply don’t exist in any way that makes them useful or helpful in people’s lives. Think of Google Glass – no one wanted to be on their backs with an irritant camera all day! Hence the companies must know what the customers really need from them before they are able to sell products and services.
WebTV
WebTV was an early startup, a set-top box that you connected to your TV that gave you a fast version of the internet on TV. For the non-computerised user, it supported browsing, real-time chat, message boards, email and web page design – for an additional per-month dial-up modem fee of $20 subscription for internet use (see below).
WebTV failed from the beginning because of a weak internet infrastructure, it was sluggish, the text couldn’t be read 10 feet away from a television set, it didn’t include third-party applications and novices had to learn how to navigate URL-unknown in the face of all this. And yet, Microsoft bought WebTV 8 months after its launch! For all these flaws, though, WebTV was hugely popular: Microsoft bought it in just eight months!
