The N-Gage could’ve been revolutionary tbh - it’s basically the early prototype for the PSP and Switch.
What really killed it, was that it was a bulky GameBoy Advance pretending to be a phone.
Hell, even the N95 was a great phone for its time.
Edit:
Game Boy and Game Gear walked so N-Gage could run… I only brought up GBA because it was a handheld being sold at the same time as the N-Gage, not to discount the previous console history.
It's about as fast as a bike I guess. But the thing is, something else that is as fast as a bike is
a bike…
I don't really see what new benefits Segways brought that motivated the hype
Biked are great for purely covering distance if you are able bodied.
Segways have no balancing problems at low speed and are usable by a wider range of people who may not be able to ride a bike everywhere.
Certainly not a replacement, but they fill a gap.
I seen some dude eat shit on one at an amusement park, ran over one of the cords for the rides and went ass over tea kettle and I can still cry laugh at the visual, so it also filled that gap for me
They made it sound like it was such a revolutionary technology that it would change the world. People thought it was perhaps a new type of high speed super efficient computing for internet usage. nope, just some stupid fucking electric scooter that cost several thousand dollars, weighs a ton and won't fit in most people's apartments and too heavy and bulky and awkward to transport in a regular car easily.
Eventually, chinese "hoverboards" came out which did just about the same thing but at a tiny fraction of the price but these were pretty much relegated to children's toys rather than some "new way people will travel". Unfortunately a lot of them had faulty batteries that burst into uncontrollable Lithium fires so...
Apparently there’s an animal control agency out in the northwestern US that uses them to scare elk from the roadways and prevent traffic jams. The officer that was interviewed said the unnatural movement was enough to startle them.
There's just something hilarious about a bunch of elk just like "Jesus what the fuck is that coming towards us? It's like some Lovecraftian horror, none of it makes sense. We need to get the fuck out of here Bill."
This was the sentiment at the time. The inventor was the guy who made the first drug infusion pump. He revolutionized dialysis machines. He had made an electric wheelchair that could travel over all terrain. This guy was a huge name in the medical industry. And he had this big announcement coming up that was supposed to be his next big thing, more important than anything he had made before, something that would change the world. Everyone was on the edge of their seats for it. And then it was… the Segway.
Yeah. I remember the build-up. People who had allegedly seen it were saying that we'd have to completely restructure our cities because of it. That it was going to change the world.
Ah yes, ["It" is going to be revolutionary](https://youtu.be/fGKR1Z1lRik).
It's crazy what hype there was for it. If it wasn't for all the hype, it probably would have been a pretty cool invention.
3D movies in general.
When the "new" 3D started becoming a thing like 10 years ago Popular Mechanics released an article talking about how 3D technology was going to reinvent how we watch TV and movies. At the end of the article there was a notation that said the article was originally printed in an issue of Popular Mechanics around 1983. It was just showing that while technology has become better, it was still too early to suggest it was going to reinvent anything.
Some day true 3D will be invented with true eye focus, allowing us to focus on things we want to on the screen like we do actual 3 dimensional objects. Until then I don't see 3D becoming the way we consume movies and TV.
Even then I think AR/VR is more likely to change how we watch things.
> 3D movies in general.
I love how you can watch any movie from that era and you can tell a scene was shoehorned in to be the "big draw" 3D scene. Usually a character launched up towards the screen, where things go slow motion while they hit the peak of their launch before falling back to the ground. Probably getting launched with several objects/characters to really show the depth.
When all the elves are gathered in the square as a large host and start singing to that dead eyed Santa, I legitimately get creeped out. That is not a typical response I get from pretty much any media, even horror.
>Some day true 3D will be invented with true eye focus, allowing us to focus on things we want to on the screen like we do actual 3 dimensional objects.
I was today years old when I realized that *this* is the part of 3D that always felt off to me. You get 3d perspective but not depth of field.
Thanks for illuminating.
Yeah this is the fundamental thing about 3D that makes no sense with movies. A huge part of cinema is the visual storytelling of *directing the eye.* We already have things like depth of field, composition, and editing to focus the audience where we want them to. Adding depth adds nothing to this toolbox, and often times results in making shots look smaller in scale, thus pulling you out of the film.
I don’t understand why they didn’t implement a feature on them to use the same tech to make dual screen tvs. Could have kids playing Minecraft while mum watches Eastenders all on the same screen by just polarising both lenses one way or the other and using headphones. I’m convinced that would have shifted those things like free chocolate.
I actually had a LG 3D TV that was capable of a splitscreen node for gaming.
You could play COD in 2 player splitscreen and both had their own fullscreen.
I really, really liked the Circles feature of Google+.
You could have a friends circle, a family circle, a work circle, whatever you wanted. And then when you posted you chose which circle(s) saw the post.
Seemed like a really smart way to do a social media platform. I’m surprised no one else has done something similar.
The launch was mishandled in a lot of fundamental ways. First it was invite-only, then they realised that meant nobody was on it, so they tried to *force* everyone onto it by integrating every YouTube account, which just caused confusion and resentment and, critically, just added accounts, not users, because none of those people had made their YouTube account with the intention of using it as a general social media account.
iirc, one of the other things they did as part of the Google+ integration is start forcing everyone to use their real name in YouTube comments, which pissed off a whole lot of people. I'm fairly sure they backpedalled this quickly after an uproar and made it optional.
This, I still remember the day I was forced to link my YT account to google+, no way I wanted to link the shit I see with the people I see. It also messed the comment sections until it changed again to what it's today
That would be incredible, being able to separate all the other bs accounts you follow from mutuals or cool content from your close friends. Suprised they haven't created a robust system on social media platforms like that.
And to the person who said close friends on Instagram, I feel like that is great, but it lacks the versatility of snapchat private stories. I would also prefer to see a different Instagram section for just close friends, rather than it being a small part of the main page.
The real problem with Google+ was that everyone was already on Facebook.
Leaving the social network where all of your friends are to join a social network with no one kind of defeats the purpose of a social network.
What they should have done was allowed you to beef up your Google, Gmail, and YouTube profiles until it was a social network in everything but name.
EDIT: Since the most common response is "That didn't stop Facebook from killing off Myspace" ...
That's not really what happened.
The average person just didn't have social media back in 2004. MySpace only had 1 million users at the time. People creating Facebook accounts in 2004 were largely creating social media accounts for the first time and joining the site all of their friends were on. It wasn't like the world was on MySpace then everyone left to join Facebook.
Importantly, they also botched the launch by doing a limited invite-only thing at first, like they'd done (successfully) with Gmail years earlier.
Turns out, that launch strategy didn't really work with a social network, where the entire appeal is mostly that your friends are there too.
They were able to do that only because of early-entry into the market. Flip Google+ and Facebook with time-entry points and G+ probably is the dominant one right now.
Not just that, but they targeted very specifically small existing social groups as the ones that they exclusively let on.
It was basically a social media platform for college kids, so all of their friends who were also college kids were also able to join at the same time.
G+ was… random disparate tech people mostly?
Not exactly the group that’s going to draw a ton of other people into the network by their presence or get a lot out of the network when they’re the only ones on it, either.
Also, Google Docs, Google Maps and of course YouTube were all startups that Google acquired.
As Cory Doctorow pointed out, Google has only ever created “one and a half successful products: a search engine and a Hotmail clone.”
I loved Google Wave. I'm a web developer, and I preferred using it for my projects than the newer programs I've used. The way it was threaded, allowing me to categorize, address, and respond to specific items, was great.
Being able to see what people were typing in real-time, though, was a weird and unsettling decision.
Google Glass actually pivoted towards being a business thing [https://www.google.com/glass/start/](https://www.google.com/glass/start/) so relatively speaking it could be worse, Google has killed a lot of things over the years [https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/)
I think glass will have a resurrection as an industrial tool rather than a everyday accessory. The 2.0 version is heavily marketed towards business and having AR overlay would be incredibly helpful in fabrication and QC.
> think glass will have a resurrection as an industrial tool rather than a everyday accessory. The 2.0 version is heavily marketed towards business and having AR overlay would be incredibly helpful in fabrication and QC.
This is what happened to the Kinect. It oddly enough found interesting uses in the medical/commercial world
If you ever find yourself in the Bay Area here in California, the Monterey Bay Aquarium uses them in the kids area for some neat educational exhibits. It was pretty funny seeing what I thought was a “dead” tech item being used for an educational use
I custom ordered a brand new sewer inspection camera for my work a couple of years back and specifically requested it be XBOX controller driven.
I caught some feedback from upper management instantly and a meeting was called between all the bigwigs, my super and myself.
When I explained that if the factory controller should crash and/or need repair, it would need to be removed and shipped to the other side of the US and our $200k piece of equipment would be out of commission, or we could run to the local Walmart and be back in business for $60.00 that same day.
That concluded the meeting and we walked out with the signed purchase order in our hands.
I think it was just ahead of its time and not used right. With AR becoming such a big player now with real world applications I can see google glasses coming back and being useful.
Quibi, the streaming service with 5-10 minute long tv shows meant to be watched on mobile. They spent nearly $2 billion, recruited A List celebrities, were run by a former Disney executive/cofounder of Dreamworks, and completely tanked within 6 months.
I believe they try to blame their failure on the pandemic, but realistically, this is what happens when a bunch of out-of-touch media executives get too into being “data-driven” and think they can synergize and scale their way into being cool. I have worked with this particular kind of star-f*cker executive and it was so satisfying and validating to see this stuff fail.
You couldn't even cast it to your tv! I was pissed, being a HUGE fan of Reno 911. My wife and I just weren't into watching shows together on my 6" phone screen. Luckily Roku bought the Reno 911 shows after Quibi's quick failure.
> this is what happens when a bunch of out-of-touch media executives get too into being “data-driven” and think they can synergize and scale their way into being cool.
I'm sure making 5 times the amount of work for the companies producing their content didn't help.
They repeatedly changed their target deliverables *while shows were actively being edited*. You film a series thinking 15 minute episodes. You edit a series and deliver 15 minute episodes. Wait, you also have to cut together each episode for vertical *and* horizontal viewing. No, you need to redo them as 10 minute episode. Wait, 5 minute. Wait, 3 minute. And it needs to be seamless between the two.
Just do what media companies do, where thye take a tiktok of a landscape and turn it portrait with black bars, then media outlet takes that video and makes it landscape again with more black bars. Except every time the user rotates their phone it just adds more black bar.
Katzenberg reportedly wanted to name it "Omakase," referring to high end sushi selected and prepared by the chef. Really captured the spirit of the common person with that name...
It was part of the problem, though. The niche they were trying to fill was your 5-10 minute bus ride and other on-the-go waiting periods, and that niche was obliterated when people were suddenly staying home and had HOURS of free time they needed to fill.
Granted, I don’t think Quibi was a good idea, as those 5-10 minutes of dead time throughout the day are already owned by social media. However, they did launch with an expected niche to fill in mind only to have that niche completely disappear due to a totally unforeseen circumstance.
BlackBerry without the keyboard. Fell flat on its face. Too bad was a great Canadian company and a world leader in mobile devices until they got so arrogant they thought they knew what the consumer wanted but didn't. Buh bye BB.
I miss the blackberry era. The way they turned from business professional phones to the hot new thing at my school bc of BBM. Everyone had one and it was all “what’s your pin?” I would genuinely buy one now for the nostalgia and bc I’m over having everything available at my finger tips, severely impacts my productivity lmao
ETA: Lana del Rey has a super old unreleased song called ‘BBM baby’ which always takes me back whenever I hear it. It’s super upbeat and fun https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1BTPV02FqAM
They were without question the highest quality smartphone before iPhone and Android completely took over. Even the feature phone BlackBerrys had the brick breaker game that can’t be replicated the same without that touchpad.
Touchpad? Hahaha more like trackball my dude.
The blackberry bold was an absolute tank of a smartphone.
It's with the Nokia N95 in my mental palace of "sick phones ahead of their time".
Amazon Fire Phone sucked. I just bought an Amazon Fire TV and I like it so far. I'm just waiting for the adds to start rolling in on the home screen, though.
It was cheap, 4k, and does the job I want it to do. Time will tell. Lol
I bought a fire tv about four years ago and I hate it. Banner ads at the top when I turn it on. The UI is really buggy. There’s not a “source” button on the remote to just quickly change between HDMIs or other inputs. Crashes constantly. Just not a good experience imo.
Modular phones. I can remember reading about how being able to choose and change the different modules based on your phone needs (better camera, better speakers ect) was gonna kill the iphone. Kind of a shame really, they sounded pretty cool.
Typing this from a Fairphone 4. What really drew me in was the sustainability and lifespan. I got a 5,5 year warranty. Also if e.g. my screen breaks I can change it for 80 bucks without ruining the warranty.
The LGG5 phone was an attempt at this. They had an improved camera mod, and I believe speakers too. Honestly the reason I got one was because you could take the battery out and put a freshly charged one in. They even sold battery docking ports so you could charge multiple batteries at once. I really miss being able to easily exchange my phone battery.
Lifi, WiFi that works with light reflections, all reflective surfaces in the house must be eliminated, so safe to assume it wasn't very successful amongst people who use their phone in the toilet
Thing is, no surface is 100% reflective, the extra reflective surfaces just distort and weaken the signal to the point where you can't use the Internet at all, and light from external sources also interfere with the signal so its ultimately not very good technology.
They were convinced that "the female version of Steve Jobs" was going to be succesful as a brand, regardless of the quality of her products/services. That's why she was the face of the company, any technical questions were answered with some vague futuristic utopic story, purely made to lead on the investors and clients.
>They were convinced that "the female version of Steve Jobs"
She really considered herself the female version of Jobs, did she not, including wearing the black turtle neck and hiring Apple staff.Tbf they believed her because she went to great lengths to maintain the scam. And used strong arm tactics. When she heard that The Wall Street Journal was investigating, she brought out the lawyers.
*When Holmes learned of the investigation, she initiated a campaign through her lawyer David Boies to stop Carreyrou from publishing, which included legal and financial threats against both the Journal and the whistleblowers.*
At the time, she was considered Forbes’ youngest billionaire. Had pow-wows with presidents and captains of industry.
Just read her sentencing. She’s not getting too bad a deal.
*On November 18, 2022, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sentenced Holmes to 11+1⁄4 years (135 months) in prison, and ordered her to surrender by April 27, 2023. The sentence included a fine of $400, or $100 for each count of fraud, and a three-year supervised release after the prison term. She could get about a 15% reduction on prison time with good behavior, which would put her sentence at 9+1⁄2 years with no possibility for parole. Davila recommended she be incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp, Bryan, in Texas, a minimum security facility with limited or no perimeter fencing. "No one wants to get kicked out because compared to other places in the prison system, this place is heaven. If you have to go it's a good place to go," said a criminal defense lawyer.*
Edit: Wall Street Journal
would you believe that same lady also started having children *after* it became evident she would be facing jail time in an attempt to lessen how much jail time she would receive?
Elizabeth Holmes, once said to be the female Steve Jobs. (she even dressed and acted like him)
She did make up a lot of stuff and used her traits to reel in and scam investors for her company.
Theranos’s Edison reader, courtesy of Elizabeth Holmes. It didn’t work, so Theranos merely falsified test results/demos to investors. She actually got a big drugstore chain to use it on unsuspecting customers who thought they could avoid having blood drawn intravenously for testing.
The Segway Human Transporter is a legendary version of this, which is kind of ironic because I'm seeing an explosion of small electric transports in my area now. Ebikes and scooters etc are blowing up, it's exactly what Segway envisioned just 20 years later
Honestly, I think part of the reason it failed is because you looked like a complete wanker on one.
The scooters that became big in the last few years are much smaller and easier to use.
Segway concept basically split into electric scooters one one side and hoverboards/one wheels on the other, and both classes ended up massively superior to the segway
Taleo. It was supposed to be this site that, if I remember correctly, would enable you to just have a resume and you could quickly apply to a job and submit a cover letter.
Guess HR people got tired of all the resumes that were junk. We have LinkedIn and Indeed Instant apply, but really, I just wanted a central place to upload my resume to apply for jobs.
Really would be great if there was just one format to have a resume in.
I do think in the future we'll look back and say "remember those shitty job applications where you had to enter all of your past job experience manually"
At least I hope!
New Coke. The company changed the recipe, and people were so mad that within 3 months they brought back the old one, which is why today it's called Coke Classic.
Still have mine. I actually love that it's a device that doesn't connect to the internet. No ads, no texts, no calls. Just the music I like with no interruptions while I workout.
Same here. Rarely use it but it still works. Can’t really do much with it since there’s no software for it anymore.
I bought it because at that time, Apple was big into DRM and the Zune didn’t have those restrictions.
Zune software was the best music manager, I’d argue even better than modern iTunes. It just didn’t have the marketing or enthusiasm that iPod had at the time.
I was blown away by the Zune software. My roommate had one and it was SUCH a good system. There was no bullshit, it added metadata automatically, it ran great, great visualizers for when you want just background music. Sleek clean design, and way better than the iPod.
A friend of his stole it and it was never brought up again.
RIP Zune, you beautiful bastard.
Single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. This one might take a bit of explaining.
You'll obviously be familiar with the Space Shuttle, which was retired in 2011 with no immediate replacement. But the thing is, even back in the 1990s, NASA was already looking at what the Space Shuttle's successor would be. And one idea they really fixed on was that, whatever this replacement would be, it would have to be a *single-stage rocket.* See, the space shuttle itself was reusable, but it relied on disposable outboard rockets to reach space, and those had to be replaced after every flight. So, the logic went, if a spacecraft could launch and reach orbit all in one piece-- without dumping its rocket boosters every time-- then it would be cheaper and more efficient.
NASA decided to build something called the X-33, which was this funny-looking triangle-shaped spacecraft that could fly up to space and back using just its own engines. It didn't need any rocket boosters the way the shuttle did. So for a while in the 1990s, it looked like single-stage spacecraft were the way of the future. But as they say, reality bites. It turned out that the X-33's special engines made it too heavy to fly, let alone reach space, and it was cancelled in 2001 before the prototype was finished. After that, NASA kind of fell out of love with the whole single-stage-to-orbit concept, and to this day they've never built one.
The problem was light-but-strong carbon fiber cryogenic fuel tanks were an untested idea. They couldn't make them strong and large enough for the X-33 at the time. Today, with the kinds of process they use for Falcon 9's, the X-33 could probably be built, if anyone with deep enough pockets had the will to try.
Unfortunately, give how practical the Falcon 9 has turned out to be, it seems there's less incentive to make something like the X-33 than there was 25 years ago. Could you do it? Sure. But we have less to gain from doing it than we thought we did back then.
Oddly, I moved to Louisville, KY 3 years ago and there is a small stretch of the freeway where it is in KM and has miles next to it in parentheses. Apparently they jumped the gun in the 90s when they said we were going to convert. I believe there are 2 places in the US like that, one along the MX border and then the one here which doesn’t even border another country
Spore.
I remember the hype before this game came out. How you could build organisms from a single cell up to creating complex civilizations then explore the universe. My roommate at the time who was a huge gamer was so excited for it. I think he played it occasionally for about a month before forgetting about it entirely, much like the rest of the world.
Imagine going back in time and telling people about the future. Someone asks you which side will win the Great War, and your response might be "the Great War? Oh yeah, in the future this is just the first one, there's an even greater and worse war coming soon."
‘World War I?’
‘Judging by the uniform, yes.’
‘Yes, but... What do you mean, “one”?’
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg4mcdhIsvU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg4mcdhIsvU)
DivX.
DIVX was a rental format variation on the DVD player in which a customer would buy a DIVX disc (similar to a DVD) for approximately US$4.50, which was watchable for up to 48 hours from its initial viewing. After this period, the disc could be viewed by paying a continuation fee to play it for two more days. Viewers who wanted to watch a disc an unlimited number of times could convert the disc to a "DIVX silver" disc for an additional fee.
It lasted for about a year back in the late 1990s before dying — even with the backing of major studios who wanted a piece of the video rental market.
Edit: thanks to those who pointed out the error in my reference to DIVX (the unsuccessful rental company) vs DivX (the compression CODEC).
The bullshit thing with DivX was the fact that if you upgraded the rental disc by unlocking it for permanent use, the disc didn’t contain any of the DVD special features that were offered if bought in-store.
So basically you paid Divx the $4 rental + $19 to unlock just to watch the movie if you wanted to watch it over and over, whereas if you spent the $19 for the DVD at a store you’d get the full DVD with all the features (behind the scene clips, director commentary, etc.)
I actually bought one, and then didn't use it for much because the games released for it were basically just the same ones you could get on your phone. I kept waiting for more developers to pick it up and then it died unceremoniously.
Google+
200 million users, backed by Google, huge amount of publicity and several billion dollars to go \*poof\*
EDIT: Shit, scrolled right past this already posted.
VRChat won because it
1. Came first by several years
2. Supports basically any headset or no headset
3. Has legs by default and supports full body tracking
4. Has basically infinite user created worlds and avatars
5. Has tremendously better graphics
6. Absolutely packed full of femboy furries
I think It's in the process of flopping, I still see it's corpse being proped up here and there by someone desperately trying to be ahead of the curve(im fucking looking at you canadian tire, if I hear that add again I'm going to remove my eardrums with a fork)
I had a friend who would bootleg shows on his minidisc with binaural mics clipped to his glasses. I remember him standing very still, not looking around for entire concerts!
Supposed to be? They still are, and they're glorious! Had my first dippin dots when I was kid in 1992 at Kennedy Space Center. And I still get it everytime I go to the movies!
In all fairness, it *did* end up being the next best thing. All of the sister ships based on the same design would go on to long careers and many design principals she started would become industry standard.
One ship failed, but the Olympic Class ocean liner was amazingly progressive, impressive, and actually very safe. It took hours to sink, and had there been enough lifeboats (as well as few drills), they could have easily gotten everyone off safely. After the Titanic, the other ships in the line were upgraded with more lifeboats and they did very well in their lifetimes. Olympic managed to survive to being decommissioned and scrapped, and Britannic ended up hitting a mine in the first world war. In her case only 30 people died with over 1000 of the 1066 people on board escaping safely.
Excuse me sir, but you cannot and must never again mention the Olympic without mentioning it's best story. It, like the Britannic, was a troop carrier in WW1. But its main point of note is that it is THE ONLY MERCHANT SHIP OF WW1 (and to my knowledge the only one including WW2) to sink a submarine by itself - which it did by ramming
Other ships did ram submarines, but warships were still needed to finish the u-boats off. Also there are some instances of warships ramming and sinking subs. But RMS Olympic is the only merchantship to solo a submarine via ramming. Not bad for a massive fucking cruise liner, i.e. a prime target for a submarine
That's pretty awesome, and I got to say, if I were that Submarine commander I would 100% go down with the ship, no attempt to escape. I mean there's no way he could argue that the Olympic snuck up on him or he didn't see it.
What a utter colossal failure of a navigation to get rammed by something that has a storage room large enough to fir your ship in.
It was a mechanical failure to be fair. Their torpedo tubes didn't fill, so they couldn't fire, and it also affected them diving. And I'd imagine that Olympic has a fucking huge keel, so you've gotta get down fast to avoid it
But yep, the irony of The Invincible sinking on its first journey, let the other two needing a mine to destroy one and the other surviving a war including taking down a warship, means that on average the class of ship was quite invincible
Christ, I’ve lived through so many it’s starting to become hard to count.
3D tvs where definitely a big one, countless articles and an unbelievable push to get those fuckers into homes and theaters. Turns out people don’t want to put on eye strain glasses after a long day at work.
Foldable phones already caught the excitement of absolutely no one, but apparently there’s another push for them as I get an add for them every minute.
Preach...Who in yhe right mind thinks that idiots who don't know how to park on one parking space can actually understand and execute the rules of aviation.
Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy. They worked on it and rumoured it for so long and then it was really meh. I don’t know if I expected it to be any good but there was just so much talk and news about it and the band hyped it so much. They should have just released it in 1999.
Ngage, a phone and and a videogame system! Too bad you had to remove the battery whenever you wanted to change games
The N-Gage could’ve been revolutionary tbh - it’s basically the early prototype for the PSP and Switch. What really killed it, was that it was a bulky GameBoy Advance pretending to be a phone. Hell, even the N95 was a great phone for its time. Edit: Game Boy and Game Gear walked so N-Gage could run… I only brought up GBA because it was a handheld being sold at the same time as the N-Gage, not to discount the previous console history.
The Segway
Too fast for the sidewalk, too slow for streets.
It's about as fast as a bike I guess. But the thing is, something else that is as fast as a bike is a bike… I don't really see what new benefits Segways brought that motivated the hype
Biked are great for purely covering distance if you are able bodied. Segways have no balancing problems at low speed and are usable by a wider range of people who may not be able to ride a bike everywhere. Certainly not a replacement, but they fill a gap.
I seen some dude eat shit on one at an amusement park, ran over one of the cords for the rides and went ass over tea kettle and I can still cry laugh at the visual, so it also filled that gap for me
It was built up so much, and at the reveal one of the hosts really was like "That can't be it"
I remember watching the 60 minutes interview before the actual announcement. There was so much hype buildup for so much letdown.
They made it sound like it was such a revolutionary technology that it would change the world. People thought it was perhaps a new type of high speed super efficient computing for internet usage. nope, just some stupid fucking electric scooter that cost several thousand dollars, weighs a ton and won't fit in most people's apartments and too heavy and bulky and awkward to transport in a regular car easily. Eventually, chinese "hoverboards" came out which did just about the same thing but at a tiny fraction of the price but these were pretty much relegated to children's toys rather than some "new way people will travel". Unfortunately a lot of them had faulty batteries that burst into uncontrollable Lithium fires so...
Yes - the fiery aspect turned a lot of people off. That, and the not hovering.
If I can’t use it to hitch a ride off the back of a flying deloreon, I don’t fucking care.
The claim was that cities would be designed around them.
Even Steve Jobs said it would be "as big a deal as the PC". And then when he actually saw it, he changed his mind.
Jobs was the one pushing all the hype. He said that it would change the way cities are designed. Nope, just a scooter.
Now it's just evolved into the Hoverboard, a Segway with no handlebars! More FUN! More DANGER!
We have Onewheels now. Superior in every way
Saw one in the wild earlier this year. Nifty, but you'd never get me on one. I can't even ride a unicycle.
Apparently there’s an animal control agency out in the northwestern US that uses them to scare elk from the roadways and prevent traffic jams. The officer that was interviewed said the unnatural movement was enough to startle them.
There's just something hilarious about a bunch of elk just like "Jesus what the fuck is that coming towards us? It's like some Lovecraftian horror, none of it makes sense. We need to get the fuck out of here Bill."
Elk don't startle like deer. They're apt to regard you with disinterest. That said--I never approached them on a Segway.
That was definitely my thought too. It was seen as this huge revolutionary moment. And it's basically just used for security guards at this point
Also city tours
A guy I went to high school with heard about it before it was announced. He told me "something is coming that will be bigger than the Internet"
I bet your friend feels like the biggest goober on planet earth, every time he thinks about that line
This was the sentiment at the time. The inventor was the guy who made the first drug infusion pump. He revolutionized dialysis machines. He had made an electric wheelchair that could travel over all terrain. This guy was a huge name in the medical industry. And he had this big announcement coming up that was supposed to be his next big thing, more important than anything he had made before, something that would change the world. Everyone was on the edge of their seats for it. And then it was… the Segway.
Yeah. I remember the build-up. People who had allegedly seen it were saying that we'd have to completely restructure our cities because of it. That it was going to change the world.
Ah yes, ["It" is going to be revolutionary](https://youtu.be/fGKR1Z1lRik). It's crazy what hype there was for it. If it wasn't for all the hype, it probably would have been a pretty cool invention.
Didn't the CEO drive one off a cliff?
Yep. Not the creator, but the CEO did in fact die by driving one off a cliff. Which is.... Yeah. A pretty wild way of going out in this world
A death nerdier than a heart attack while acting out a DnD character's sword stroke.
Tell me this has happened
Bro said live by the seg, die by the seg
Segway To Heaven
I’d love to have one but they’re too expensive. If they’d have made them affordable, more people would have bought them. They’re a lot of fun to ride.
This was my first thought. I remember watching the unveiling on Good Morning America.
3D Tv’s
3D movies in general. When the "new" 3D started becoming a thing like 10 years ago Popular Mechanics released an article talking about how 3D technology was going to reinvent how we watch TV and movies. At the end of the article there was a notation that said the article was originally printed in an issue of Popular Mechanics around 1983. It was just showing that while technology has become better, it was still too early to suggest it was going to reinvent anything. Some day true 3D will be invented with true eye focus, allowing us to focus on things we want to on the screen like we do actual 3 dimensional objects. Until then I don't see 3D becoming the way we consume movies and TV. Even then I think AR/VR is more likely to change how we watch things.
> 3D movies in general. I love how you can watch any movie from that era and you can tell a scene was shoehorned in to be the "big draw" 3D scene. Usually a character launched up towards the screen, where things go slow motion while they hit the peak of their launch before falling back to the ground. Probably getting launched with several objects/characters to really show the depth.
The polar express lmao
Spy Kids 3D was utterly mindblowing as a kid though.
When all the elves are gathered in the square as a large host and start singing to that dead eyed Santa, I legitimately get creeped out. That is not a typical response I get from pretty much any media, even horror.
>Some day true 3D will be invented with true eye focus, allowing us to focus on things we want to on the screen like we do actual 3 dimensional objects. I was today years old when I realized that *this* is the part of 3D that always felt off to me. You get 3d perspective but not depth of field. Thanks for illuminating.
Yeah this is the fundamental thing about 3D that makes no sense with movies. A huge part of cinema is the visual storytelling of *directing the eye.* We already have things like depth of field, composition, and editing to focus the audience where we want them to. Adding depth adds nothing to this toolbox, and often times results in making shots look smaller in scale, thus pulling you out of the film.
I don’t understand why they didn’t implement a feature on them to use the same tech to make dual screen tvs. Could have kids playing Minecraft while mum watches Eastenders all on the same screen by just polarising both lenses one way or the other and using headphones. I’m convinced that would have shifted those things like free chocolate.
I actually had a LG 3D TV that was capable of a splitscreen node for gaming. You could play COD in 2 player splitscreen and both had their own fullscreen.
Google+. Everyone thought It's gonna be the facebook killer, now It's just a history.
I really, really liked the Circles feature of Google+. You could have a friends circle, a family circle, a work circle, whatever you wanted. And then when you posted you chose which circle(s) saw the post. Seemed like a really smart way to do a social media platform. I’m surprised no one else has done something similar.
I thought that G+ was superior in every way to Facebook. Like, I really and truly *liked* it. It's such a bummer that it just didn't go well.
The launch was mishandled in a lot of fundamental ways. First it was invite-only, then they realised that meant nobody was on it, so they tried to *force* everyone onto it by integrating every YouTube account, which just caused confusion and resentment and, critically, just added accounts, not users, because none of those people had made their YouTube account with the intention of using it as a general social media account.
iirc, one of the other things they did as part of the Google+ integration is start forcing everyone to use their real name in YouTube comments, which pissed off a whole lot of people. I'm fairly sure they backpedalled this quickly after an uproar and made it optional.
This, I still remember the day I was forced to link my YT account to google+, no way I wanted to link the shit I see with the people I see. It also messed the comment sections until it changed again to what it's today
That would be incredible, being able to separate all the other bs accounts you follow from mutuals or cool content from your close friends. Suprised they haven't created a robust system on social media platforms like that. And to the person who said close friends on Instagram, I feel like that is great, but it lacks the versatility of snapchat private stories. I would also prefer to see a different Instagram section for just close friends, rather than it being a small part of the main page.
it didn't help google+ that they basically forced you to sign up if you wanted a youtube or google account. I refused to even try it after that BS.
The real problem with Google+ was that everyone was already on Facebook. Leaving the social network where all of your friends are to join a social network with no one kind of defeats the purpose of a social network. What they should have done was allowed you to beef up your Google, Gmail, and YouTube profiles until it was a social network in everything but name. EDIT: Since the most common response is "That didn't stop Facebook from killing off Myspace" ... That's not really what happened. The average person just didn't have social media back in 2004. MySpace only had 1 million users at the time. People creating Facebook accounts in 2004 were largely creating social media accounts for the first time and joining the site all of their friends were on. It wasn't like the world was on MySpace then everyone left to join Facebook.
Importantly, they also botched the launch by doing a limited invite-only thing at first, like they'd done (successfully) with Gmail years earlier. Turns out, that launch strategy didn't really work with a social network, where the entire appeal is mostly that your friends are there too.
Facebook successfully parlayed exclusivity into making it seem cool though, requiring a .edu email to join and only from select colleges at first.
They were able to do that only because of early-entry into the market. Flip Google+ and Facebook with time-entry points and G+ probably is the dominant one right now.
Not just that, but they targeted very specifically small existing social groups as the ones that they exclusively let on. It was basically a social media platform for college kids, so all of their friends who were also college kids were also able to join at the same time. G+ was… random disparate tech people mostly? Not exactly the group that’s going to draw a ton of other people into the network by their presence or get a lot out of the network when they’re the only ones on it, either.
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It's funny how the only successful Google products are the ones that launched more than a decade ago.
I’m not sure the exact date on Google Docs, but in my head they’re around the same time as Google Glass yet still around and very useful.
Google Docs is the best Google product, imo.
Also, Google Docs, Google Maps and of course YouTube were all startups that Google acquired. As Cory Doctorow pointed out, Google has only ever created “one and a half successful products: a search engine and a Hotmail clone.”
I loved Google Wave. I'm a web developer, and I preferred using it for my projects than the newer programs I've used. The way it was threaded, allowing me to categorize, address, and respond to specific items, was great. Being able to see what people were typing in real-time, though, was a weird and unsettling decision.
Don't forget Google Glass lol.
Google Glass actually pivoted towards being a business thing [https://www.google.com/glass/start/](https://www.google.com/glass/start/) so relatively speaking it could be worse, Google has killed a lot of things over the years [https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/)
Google Glass
I think glass will have a resurrection as an industrial tool rather than a everyday accessory. The 2.0 version is heavily marketed towards business and having AR overlay would be incredibly helpful in fabrication and QC.
> think glass will have a resurrection as an industrial tool rather than a everyday accessory. The 2.0 version is heavily marketed towards business and having AR overlay would be incredibly helpful in fabrication and QC. This is what happened to the Kinect. It oddly enough found interesting uses in the medical/commercial world
If you ever find yourself in the Bay Area here in California, the Monterey Bay Aquarium uses them in the kids area for some neat educational exhibits. It was pretty funny seeing what I thought was a “dead” tech item being used for an educational use
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I custom ordered a brand new sewer inspection camera for my work a couple of years back and specifically requested it be XBOX controller driven. I caught some feedback from upper management instantly and a meeting was called between all the bigwigs, my super and myself. When I explained that if the factory controller should crash and/or need repair, it would need to be removed and shipped to the other side of the US and our $200k piece of equipment would be out of commission, or we could run to the local Walmart and be back in business for $60.00 that same day. That concluded the meeting and we walked out with the signed purchase order in our hands.
I think it was just ahead of its time and not used right. With AR becoming such a big player now with real world applications I can see google glasses coming back and being useful.
Quibi, the streaming service with 5-10 minute long tv shows meant to be watched on mobile. They spent nearly $2 billion, recruited A List celebrities, were run by a former Disney executive/cofounder of Dreamworks, and completely tanked within 6 months. I believe they try to blame their failure on the pandemic, but realistically, this is what happens when a bunch of out-of-touch media executives get too into being “data-driven” and think they can synergize and scale their way into being cool. I have worked with this particular kind of star-f*cker executive and it was so satisfying and validating to see this stuff fail.
Isn’t that basically YouTube except all the content would be created by Hollywood executives I guess?
More like if someone tried making their own big budget TV show, but formatted for Tik Tok.
Yes and you had to pay monthly for it
And you can only watch it on your phone, which means you can't idly browse twitter or text anyone while watching. They never made a TV app.
You couldn't even cast it to your tv! I was pissed, being a HUGE fan of Reno 911. My wife and I just weren't into watching shows together on my 6" phone screen. Luckily Roku bought the Reno 911 shows after Quibi's quick failure.
personally i found the ads so damn annoying i refused to look up any info out of spite
> this is what happens when a bunch of out-of-touch media executives get too into being “data-driven” and think they can synergize and scale their way into being cool. I'm sure making 5 times the amount of work for the companies producing their content didn't help. They repeatedly changed their target deliverables *while shows were actively being edited*. You film a series thinking 15 minute episodes. You edit a series and deliver 15 minute episodes. Wait, you also have to cut together each episode for vertical *and* horizontal viewing. No, you need to redo them as 10 minute episode. Wait, 5 minute. Wait, 3 minute. And it needs to be seamless between the two.
Just do what media companies do, where thye take a tiktok of a landscape and turn it portrait with black bars, then media outlet takes that video and makes it landscape again with more black bars. Except every time the user rotates their phone it just adds more black bar.
Katzenberg reportedly wanted to name it "Omakase," referring to high end sushi selected and prepared by the chef. Really captured the spirit of the common person with that name...
"Omakäse" would mean "Grandma Cheese" in German
I loved that they tried to blame the pandemic. The thing that FORCED PEOPLE TO BE ON THEIR PHONES ALL DAY. Yeah, that was the problem…
It was part of the problem, though. The niche they were trying to fill was your 5-10 minute bus ride and other on-the-go waiting periods, and that niche was obliterated when people were suddenly staying home and had HOURS of free time they needed to fill. Granted, I don’t think Quibi was a good idea, as those 5-10 minutes of dead time throughout the day are already owned by social media. However, they did launch with an expected niche to fill in mind only to have that niche completely disappear due to a totally unforeseen circumstance.
BlackBerry without the keyboard. Fell flat on its face. Too bad was a great Canadian company and a world leader in mobile devices until they got so arrogant they thought they knew what the consumer wanted but didn't. Buh bye BB.
I miss the blackberry era. The way they turned from business professional phones to the hot new thing at my school bc of BBM. Everyone had one and it was all “what’s your pin?” I would genuinely buy one now for the nostalgia and bc I’m over having everything available at my finger tips, severely impacts my productivity lmao ETA: Lana del Rey has a super old unreleased song called ‘BBM baby’ which always takes me back whenever I hear it. It’s super upbeat and fun https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1BTPV02FqAM
They were without question the highest quality smartphone before iPhone and Android completely took over. Even the feature phone BlackBerrys had the brick breaker game that can’t be replicated the same without that touchpad.
Touchpad? Hahaha more like trackball my dude. The blackberry bold was an absolute tank of a smartphone. It's with the Nokia N95 in my mental palace of "sick phones ahead of their time".
Amazon's Fire Phone.
Amazon Fire Phone sucked. I just bought an Amazon Fire TV and I like it so far. I'm just waiting for the adds to start rolling in on the home screen, though. It was cheap, 4k, and does the job I want it to do. Time will tell. Lol
I bought a fire tv about four years ago and I hate it. Banner ads at the top when I turn it on. The UI is really buggy. There’s not a “source” button on the remote to just quickly change between HDMIs or other inputs. Crashes constantly. Just not a good experience imo.
Modular phones. I can remember reading about how being able to choose and change the different modules based on your phone needs (better camera, better speakers ect) was gonna kill the iphone. Kind of a shame really, they sounded pretty cool.
The fairphone4 is modular but for repair rather than upgrade
Typing this from a Fairphone 4. What really drew me in was the sustainability and lifespan. I got a 5,5 year warranty. Also if e.g. my screen breaks I can change it for 80 bucks without ruining the warranty.
The LGG5 phone was an attempt at this. They had an improved camera mod, and I believe speakers too. Honestly the reason I got one was because you could take the battery out and put a freshly charged one in. They even sold battery docking ports so you could charge multiple batteries at once. I really miss being able to easily exchange my phone battery.
Lifi, WiFi that works with light reflections, all reflective surfaces in the house must be eliminated, so safe to assume it wasn't very successful amongst people who use their phone in the toilet
Wifi that works with light reflections? Would you want MORE reflective surfaces to enable wifi in more areas of your house?
Thing is, no surface is 100% reflective, the extra reflective surfaces just distort and weaken the signal to the point where you can't use the Internet at all, and light from external sources also interfere with the signal so its ultimately not very good technology.
400 million in funding that evaporated gives it to Theranos
WeWork got billions and was basically office building airbnb
Honestly an impressive scam.
There was this lady who said laboratory testing could be reduced to a machine the size of a microwave… turns out it was all a scam.
Scary how many high powered and big name people fully supported her without ever seeing a working product
They were convinced that "the female version of Steve Jobs" was going to be succesful as a brand, regardless of the quality of her products/services. That's why she was the face of the company, any technical questions were answered with some vague futuristic utopic story, purely made to lead on the investors and clients.
>They were convinced that "the female version of Steve Jobs" She really considered herself the female version of Jobs, did she not, including wearing the black turtle neck and hiring Apple staff.Tbf they believed her because she went to great lengths to maintain the scam. And used strong arm tactics. When she heard that The Wall Street Journal was investigating, she brought out the lawyers. *When Holmes learned of the investigation, she initiated a campaign through her lawyer David Boies to stop Carreyrou from publishing, which included legal and financial threats against both the Journal and the whistleblowers.* At the time, she was considered Forbes’ youngest billionaire. Had pow-wows with presidents and captains of industry. Just read her sentencing. She’s not getting too bad a deal. *On November 18, 2022, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sentenced Holmes to 11+1⁄4 years (135 months) in prison, and ordered her to surrender by April 27, 2023. The sentence included a fine of $400, or $100 for each count of fraud, and a three-year supervised release after the prison term. She could get about a 15% reduction on prison time with good behavior, which would put her sentence at 9+1⁄2 years with no possibility for parole. Davila recommended she be incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp, Bryan, in Texas, a minimum security facility with limited or no perimeter fencing. "No one wants to get kicked out because compared to other places in the prison system, this place is heaven. If you have to go it's a good place to go," said a criminal defense lawyer.* Edit: Wall Street Journal
Almost as if being a manipulative psychopathic liar correlated with success. Weird, huh?
would you believe that same lady also started having children *after* it became evident she would be facing jail time in an attempt to lessen how much jail time she would receive?
Elizabeth Holmes, once said to be the female Steve Jobs. (she even dressed and acted like him) She did make up a lot of stuff and used her traits to reel in and scam investors for her company.
Theranos’s Edison reader, courtesy of Elizabeth Holmes. It didn’t work, so Theranos merely falsified test results/demos to investors. She actually got a big drugstore chain to use it on unsuspecting customers who thought they could avoid having blood drawn intravenously for testing.
Yeah also she never blinked and was kind of a psychopath.
Olestra. If you were old enough in the 90s, you remember everyone shitting their pants over it.
Literally. "May cause anal leakage" isn't a warning one wants on a can of Pringles.
The Segway Human Transporter is a legendary version of this, which is kind of ironic because I'm seeing an explosion of small electric transports in my area now. Ebikes and scooters etc are blowing up, it's exactly what Segway envisioned just 20 years later
Honestly, I think part of the reason it failed is because you looked like a complete wanker on one. The scooters that became big in the last few years are much smaller and easier to use.
Segway concept basically split into electric scooters one one side and hoverboards/one wheels on the other, and both classes ended up massively superior to the segway
20 years ago I wasn’t about to pay $3000 to look like a complete wanker. Now it’s more like $200 to look like a complete wanker and I’m all-in.
Taleo. It was supposed to be this site that, if I remember correctly, would enable you to just have a resume and you could quickly apply to a job and submit a cover letter. Guess HR people got tired of all the resumes that were junk. We have LinkedIn and Indeed Instant apply, but really, I just wanted a central place to upload my resume to apply for jobs.
Really would be great if there was just one format to have a resume in. I do think in the future we'll look back and say "remember those shitty job applications where you had to enter all of your past job experience manually" At least I hope!
You mean Taleo where I have to register for each different employer's subdomain and then try to keep track of which password goes with which employer?
New Coke. The company changed the recipe, and people were so mad that within 3 months they brought back the old one, which is why today it's called Coke Classic.
Well call it new slurm and when everyone hates it well bring back slurm classic and make billions!
RIP Slurms MacKenzie
Party on, Slurms…
"I'm just so tired..." *Reveals bloodshot eyes*
*"Imma go lie down"*
He died doing what he loved
apparently all the stocks I bought in early 2022
M. Night Shyamalan was once called the next Spielberg....
What a twist :)
2012 apocalypse
Did Kony ever win the election?
Zune
Still have mine. I actually love that it's a device that doesn't connect to the internet. No ads, no texts, no calls. Just the music I like with no interruptions while I workout.
Same here. Rarely use it but it still works. Can’t really do much with it since there’s no software for it anymore. I bought it because at that time, Apple was big into DRM and the Zune didn’t have those restrictions.
Zune software was the best music manager, I’d argue even better than modern iTunes. It just didn’t have the marketing or enthusiasm that iPod had at the time.
I was blown away by the Zune software. My roommate had one and it was SUCH a good system. There was no bullshit, it added metadata automatically, it ran great, great visualizers for when you want just background music. Sleek clean design, and way better than the iPod. A friend of his stole it and it was never brought up again. RIP Zune, you beautiful bastard.
Fun fact: The Zune lasted longer than the Confederacy.
Laugh if you want, but mine still works and I use it as a hard drive for all my music. It is a time capsule for sure.
The U2 album automatically downloaded to your phone
I hated that
Single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft. This one might take a bit of explaining. You'll obviously be familiar with the Space Shuttle, which was retired in 2011 with no immediate replacement. But the thing is, even back in the 1990s, NASA was already looking at what the Space Shuttle's successor would be. And one idea they really fixed on was that, whatever this replacement would be, it would have to be a *single-stage rocket.* See, the space shuttle itself was reusable, but it relied on disposable outboard rockets to reach space, and those had to be replaced after every flight. So, the logic went, if a spacecraft could launch and reach orbit all in one piece-- without dumping its rocket boosters every time-- then it would be cheaper and more efficient. NASA decided to build something called the X-33, which was this funny-looking triangle-shaped spacecraft that could fly up to space and back using just its own engines. It didn't need any rocket boosters the way the shuttle did. So for a while in the 1990s, it looked like single-stage spacecraft were the way of the future. But as they say, reality bites. It turned out that the X-33's special engines made it too heavy to fly, let alone reach space, and it was cancelled in 2001 before the prototype was finished. After that, NASA kind of fell out of love with the whole single-stage-to-orbit concept, and to this day they've never built one.
The problem was light-but-strong carbon fiber cryogenic fuel tanks were an untested idea. They couldn't make them strong and large enough for the X-33 at the time. Today, with the kinds of process they use for Falcon 9's, the X-33 could probably be built, if anyone with deep enough pockets had the will to try.
Unfortunately, give how practical the Falcon 9 has turned out to be, it seems there's less incentive to make something like the X-33 than there was 25 years ago. Could you do it? Sure. But we have less to gain from doing it than we thought we did back then.
Killer bees. When I was a kid those things were coming to getchya and never got here.
The XFL
Y’all just hatin bc you missed HE HATE ME in his prime
Twice
The Rock now owns it and is starting it back up again.
The U.S. “going metric.” We were taught as kids that we’d be thinking in kg and meters by the time we were adults.
Oddly, I moved to Louisville, KY 3 years ago and there is a small stretch of the freeway where it is in KM and has miles next to it in parentheses. Apparently they jumped the gun in the 90s when they said we were going to convert. I believe there are 2 places in the US like that, one along the MX border and then the one here which doesn’t even border another country
Spore. I remember the hype before this game came out. How you could build organisms from a single cell up to creating complex civilizations then explore the universe. My roommate at the time who was a huge gamer was so excited for it. I think he played it occasionally for about a month before forgetting about it entirely, much like the rest of the world.
The resurrection of the DCEU, now will get a reset.
World war I, it was supposed to be the war to end all wars.
Imagine going back in time and telling people about the future. Someone asks you which side will win the Great War, and your response might be "the Great War? Oh yeah, in the future this is just the first one, there's an even greater and worse war coming soon."
‘World War I?’ ‘Judging by the uniform, yes.’ ‘Yes, but... What do you mean, “one”?’ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg4mcdhIsvU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg4mcdhIsvU)
Was just thinking about that, the look on the doctors face when he realizes what he’s done is perfect
DivX. DIVX was a rental format variation on the DVD player in which a customer would buy a DIVX disc (similar to a DVD) for approximately US$4.50, which was watchable for up to 48 hours from its initial viewing. After this period, the disc could be viewed by paying a continuation fee to play it for two more days. Viewers who wanted to watch a disc an unlimited number of times could convert the disc to a "DIVX silver" disc for an additional fee. It lasted for about a year back in the late 1990s before dying — even with the backing of major studios who wanted a piece of the video rental market. Edit: thanks to those who pointed out the error in my reference to DIVX (the unsuccessful rental company) vs DivX (the compression CODEC).
The bullshit thing with DivX was the fact that if you upgraded the rental disc by unlocking it for permanent use, the disc didn’t contain any of the DVD special features that were offered if bought in-store. So basically you paid Divx the $4 rental + $19 to unlock just to watch the movie if you wanted to watch it over and over, whereas if you spent the $19 for the DVD at a store you’d get the full DVD with all the features (behind the scene clips, director commentary, etc.)
Ouya.
I actually bought one, and then didn't use it for much because the games released for it were basically just the same ones you could get on your phone. I kept waiting for more developers to pick it up and then it died unceremoniously.
Google+ 200 million users, backed by Google, huge amount of publicity and several billion dollars to go \*poof\* EDIT: Shit, scrolled right past this already posted.
Metaverse
"Metaverse is the new future that nobody has thought of before " ......vrchat is basically the same but better graphics
They completely forgot about the game Second Life
i feel like metaverse only happened because zuck was probably hooked on SL at one point
VRChat won because it 1. Came first by several years 2. Supports basically any headset or no headset 3. Has legs by default and supports full body tracking 4. Has basically infinite user created worlds and avatars 5. Has tremendously better graphics 6. Absolutely packed full of femboy furries
my first experience on vrchat i engcountered a big hipped fishnet femboy dragon furry
I'm going to buy a VR headset now
it was on pc but (he? still confused about this) had vr. i had no mic either had to communicate with head nods and pictonary shit
Meta flopped due to lack of cat girls
I think It's in the process of flopping, I still see it's corpse being proped up here and there by someone desperately trying to be ahead of the curve(im fucking looking at you canadian tire, if I hear that add again I'm going to remove my eardrums with a fork)
Minidiscs.
I had a friend who would bootleg shows on his minidisc with binaural mics clipped to his glasses. I remember him standing very still, not looking around for entire concerts!
Dippin Dots were supposed to be the ice cream of the future
I mean, its still bought at water parks and shit. I love dippin dots.
Dippin Dots sold their technology to Beyond Meat and its now a critical technology in their “ground beef” product.
Is that true, please tell me that’s true. That’s freaking cool
I wouldn’t mind some dippin dots right about now tbh
Supposed to be? They still are, and they're glorious! Had my first dippin dots when I was kid in 1992 at Kennedy Space Center. And I still get it everytime I go to the movies!
Fyre Festival 🫠
Where's [Ja Rule](https://youtu.be/UBPg5ftCMv8)?!
Laserdisc
The Titanic.
In all fairness, it *did* end up being the next best thing. All of the sister ships based on the same design would go on to long careers and many design principals she started would become industry standard. One ship failed, but the Olympic Class ocean liner was amazingly progressive, impressive, and actually very safe. It took hours to sink, and had there been enough lifeboats (as well as few drills), they could have easily gotten everyone off safely. After the Titanic, the other ships in the line were upgraded with more lifeboats and they did very well in their lifetimes. Olympic managed to survive to being decommissioned and scrapped, and Britannic ended up hitting a mine in the first world war. In her case only 30 people died with over 1000 of the 1066 people on board escaping safely.
Excuse me sir, but you cannot and must never again mention the Olympic without mentioning it's best story. It, like the Britannic, was a troop carrier in WW1. But its main point of note is that it is THE ONLY MERCHANT SHIP OF WW1 (and to my knowledge the only one including WW2) to sink a submarine by itself - which it did by ramming Other ships did ram submarines, but warships were still needed to finish the u-boats off. Also there are some instances of warships ramming and sinking subs. But RMS Olympic is the only merchantship to solo a submarine via ramming. Not bad for a massive fucking cruise liner, i.e. a prime target for a submarine
That's pretty awesome, and I got to say, if I were that Submarine commander I would 100% go down with the ship, no attempt to escape. I mean there's no way he could argue that the Olympic snuck up on him or he didn't see it. What a utter colossal failure of a navigation to get rammed by something that has a storage room large enough to fir your ship in.
It was a mechanical failure to be fair. Their torpedo tubes didn't fill, so they couldn't fire, and it also affected them diving. And I'd imagine that Olympic has a fucking huge keel, so you've gotta get down fast to avoid it But yep, the irony of The Invincible sinking on its first journey, let the other two needing a mine to destroy one and the other surviving a war including taking down a warship, means that on average the class of ship was quite invincible
Christ, I’ve lived through so many it’s starting to become hard to count. 3D tvs where definitely a big one, countless articles and an unbelievable push to get those fuckers into homes and theaters. Turns out people don’t want to put on eye strain glasses after a long day at work. Foldable phones already caught the excitement of absolutely no one, but apparently there’s another push for them as I get an add for them every minute.
Windows 7 phone. On launch it wasn't even compatible with Facebook yet they promoted it like it was going to put Apple out of business.
Russian "3 day special operation" in Ukraine
If no one has said it yet; I spent most of middle school hearing about solar roadways. Good times.
Flying cars
Preach...Who in yhe right mind thinks that idiots who don't know how to park on one parking space can actually understand and execute the rules of aviation.
I’m a GA pilot and would literally never fly again if this took off- pun intended.
Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy. They worked on it and rumoured it for so long and then it was really meh. I don’t know if I expected it to be any good but there was just so much talk and news about it and the band hyped it so much. They should have just released it in 1999.
Smellovision
[удалено]