25 Years of Tech Blunders

Back in the ‘50s, the Edsel seemed like such a good idea. Alas, the car was a fairly expensive gas-guzzler released just as the country was entering a recession, and became one of the most costly blunders in the history of the car industry. In the last 25 years, many technology companies have continued the tradition of ill-timed, useless and just plain bad “innovation.” In honor of the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, we’ve compiled a list:

It was supposed to be a cheap PC, but the machine didn’t run much of the software used on a typical PC. The PCjr’s chiclet keyboard also was roundly criticized. Even worse, the machine was the most expensive in its category, and its limited expansion capabilities doomed it for business use. Interesting idea, but bad execution killed the machine little more than a year later.Photo Credit: Thom Cochrane

For about $4, consumers could buy a DVD that was watchable up to 48 hours after its initial viewing. Anyone who wanted to see it again could pay an additional $3 or so. The catch: It required a special player that needed to be connected to a phone line. The service created a vociferous backlash on the Internet because of its perceived competition with the new-fangled DVD format. The end result: the service lasted until June 1999, although it wasn’t officially killed until July 7, 2001.Photo Credit: Chris Coyier

Who actually thought magazine readers would scan barcodes on advertising pages using a barcode reader attached to their PCs? Radio Shack even tried to give the CueCat away in a desperate attempt to get people to use them. It’s no wonder the CueCat earned the dubious distinction of being one of PC Magazine’s worst tech products of all time.Photo Credit: Chris Silver Smith

Way back in October 2000, the idea of an Internet appliance seemed like a good one. Unfortunately, the Audrey, 3Com’s foray into the consumer market, cost $499, had no broadband support and featured less functionality than many of today’s cellphones. The end result: it was discontinued less than a year after its release. 3Com reimbursed early adopters although to this day, hackers have managed to extend the life of this Jetson’s-looking device.

It looked cool, but nothing was convenient about this expensive Apple desktop—it had to be turned over to connect peripherals, and although it was upgradeable, could not take full-length cards. On top of that, the Cube earned a reputation for developing cracks in its clear plastic case. Officially sold from 2000 to 2001, the Cube was displayed, for a time, in the Museum of Modern Art and is a prime example that looks aren’t everything.

Designed to offer Web surfers a truly sensual encounter by allowing users to experience smells from sites they visited, this device never made it onto store shelves. Good thing, too, otherwise we may be reading about the dreaded “skunk” virus.

One of the most grotesquely over-hyped technologies in history, the Segway (code named Ginger) was supposed to revolutionize personal transport. The machine’s computers, motors and gyroscopes were supposed to prevent the thing from falling over, but in 2003, President Bush proved them wrong. Then, at CES in 2004, a reporter drove it into a wall and found herself buried beneath it. Today, the Segway is around, but faces pavement restrictions in over 30 states. As a result, it’s mostly a novelty used by mall security guards.Photo Credit: Segway

Nokia had high hopes for the N-Gage as a phone/game machine when it was released in 2003, although it’s initial projection of six million unit sales in the first year fell short by a mere five million. A number of these bulky taco-shaped phone/game machines had a severe memory management issue that caused users a number of headaches, and actually kept the phone from starting up. And in a stroke of customer service brilliance, Nokia decided not to reimburse users with the issue for the full cost of the phone. Today, much of the functionality of the device has been ported over to Nokia’s regular phones.Photo Credit: Kluang

Toshiba’s high-definition DVD format likely would have been DOA if Microsoft hadn’t backed it at the last minute. Speculation was the Redmond giant was trying to stick it to Sony, since the latter was preparing to release its new PS3, which featured a built-in Blu-Ray player. When Warner Brothers, Wal-Mart and Blockbuster threw their collective heft Blu-Ray’s way in late 2007 and early 2008, HD-DVD went the way of… Beta.Photo Credit: Meine Ausrustung

Microsoft is loathe to admit it, but Vista has been an abject failure. The operating system to end all operating systems, a lack of compatibility and numerous bugs have driven Microsoft to extend the drop-dead date for new installations of Windows XP (the company’s previous OS) to May 2009. In the meantime, the company toils to speed up the release of Windows 7, even as its once-impenetrable market share has fallen below 90 percent.Photo Credit: Kluang

The Foleo was Palm’s game attempt to enter the world of laptop computing. The device weighed less than 2.5 pounds, had a 10.2-inch screen, and some people actually thought it had potential. Unfortunately, the braintrust at Palm was not among them and the Foleo never made it to market.Photo Credit: Thom Cochrane

The Zune is a fine example of a device that does all things but isn’t really good at any thing. About a million users lost their music this past New Year’s Eve when their Microsoft-based music player conked out due to a problem with the device’s internal clock. Fortunately, the Zune came back the next day. Newer Zunes have gotten better reviews, but overall, the jury’s still out on this one.>> Complete CES Coverage>> CES Milestones>> Replay SlideshowPhoto Credit: Robert Nelson