The ones that failed to lift off
Ireckon there’s a lot of unused 3D glasses tucked within television cabinets in Kiwi homes. The modern 3D TV started becoming popular in 2010 as manufacturers started promoting them as the next big thing. But within seven years that tech is dead, as a lack of decent movies and shows combined with the awkwardness of wearing the glasses proved fatal.
But 3D TVs are not the only promising tech that failed to deliver. Tech that never took off fits into three categories – tried and failed, crushed by a competitor and lingering on behind the scenes. The first category is home to 3D TV, mini discs and Google Glass.
In the second category is Betamax, the VCR tech that was beaten by VHS, Netscape Navigator (beaten by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer), Nokia and Blackberry phones (smartphones), and MySpace (Facebook).
In the lingering category are drones (I haven’t seen anyone flying one and the potential for getting pizza delivered by one is looking faint), 3D printing and QR codes.
All these efforts fit into the tech industry’s favourite mantra: ‘‘Fail fast, fail often’’. And the cycle is set to continue with the latest crop of products – virtual and augmented reality and driverless cars. There is a lot of hype about these technologies. No one wants to miss out on the next big thing so all of the top tech companies have their fingers in at least one of these pies.
To succeed, tech needs to be easy to use, affordable, better than its replacement, and add something to our lives. It’s too soon to predict what will become popular. Virtual reality is lots of fun, but it still lacks a ‘‘killer app’’ plus it’s anti-social. Augmented reality had a huge win with the success of Pokemon Go but despite a big investment from Apple, there’s been no repeated success.
And driverless cars could be on our road within a few years or a few decades, depending on which expert is right. The only thing that is certain is there’ll always be another gadget to hype that will replace the ones that flop.