Worst gadget flops of all time?
By Peter Rojas 
posted July 6th 2005 4:25PM
posted July 6th 2005 4:25PM
Alright, punks, it's time to dig deep and spit out your nominations for the worst gadget flops of all time (and we promise we're not just doing this because it's been a slow news week, either). We're defining "worst" and "gadget" and "flop" pretty broadly, so all we're asking is that if you nominate something you include a couple of sentences explaining why your choice is especially worthy of disdain. We'll take the best entries and put 'em together as a feature next week, cool?
Gameboy 3D? :D
woops...wasn't it called virtual boy or something?
My vote goes for Circuit City's DivX players. Not only did it flop, but it caused thousands (including me) to never step foot in a CC again.
one time I passed out after drinking grain alcohol on railroad tracks -- does that count?
owen
Atari Jaguar:
Hardly any games. Graphics underwhelmed. But my biggest problem with it is the numberpad on the controller. What the heck was that on there for? So it could double as a telephone? Argh. (3DO sucked, too but it was not nearly as bad)
One word: Divx.
Not the MPEG4 format, but the whole Divx "DVD rental replacement" thing. Remember? You buy the Divx discs put them in your special Divx player and you could use them for a couple of days/plays. Then you had to pay a fee to watch them again after that. Or you could just pay a large fee up front for unlimited viewings. I can't remember when i have seen a technological idea rejected so whole heartedly.
Audrey.
My vote is for the original Nokia N-Gage, the "side-taking taco phone". Also, the fact that you had to remove the battery to access the memory/game card slot.
Nintendo Powerglove.
The Sony Network Walkman. It couldn't even play MP3's!
The Sinclair c5.
A spectacularly bad excecution of an excellent, forward thinking idea introduced by a genius of a man.
In a nutshell it was an electric bike/personal transport type device released in the UK in the 80's by Alan Sinclair, who had made a fortune with his companies selling home computers and pocket calculators.
The problems with the device were many. The riding position required you to sit down and steer using a pair of handlebars under your legs. The rider sat so low that you couldn't be seen by cars, and you were exposed to the elements - this is in the UK, remember.
It was the original Segway, I remember thinking they were wickedly cool at the time.
MINI DISC
I would have to say Sega CDX
I'll go with a future flop: hd-dvd
The Solar Sail
Probably the "Smartboard"
A lot of school use these but they are completely useless. They are not sensitive enough to work. My school has one in each class and they are brand new and only half of them actually work. Also, they are too delicate to be used around a large amount of people.
CueCat Really, what exactly where they thinking.
Sony A-Trac players.
Any mp3 player other than the iPod. Because, you know, why even bother?
Sega Dreamcast
that tv watch from the 80's that sharp had, couldn't get reception and what you could see was so small you couldn't make anything out
Seriously, though, the first thing that really did pop into my head when I saw that downed freight train was the Virtual Boy. That thing is pretty iconic for some pretty major floppage in the consumer tech space.
How about releasing Transformer Decepticon Soundwave as "not" a working radio (like the Japanese edition).
http://www.plumed-serpent.com/SoundwaveJapanBox.jpg
He would have been all the way live. Flippity, FLOP-ity, floo.
Depending on how broad your definition of gadget is, how about the DeLorean?
Here's mine:
Nintendo's R.O.B. & 64DD
Tiger Game.com
Tablet PC (This and past implementations anyway)
o o o o no Beta MAX
Coleco Adam.
- Jon
A toss up between the N-Gage and the Cue Cat.
One word: Modo
The Flowbee:
In case people may not know what this is, it's a vacuum cleaner, hair attachment to give that "precision haircut" without the stylist.
The concept itself was cool, but the fact that you used a vacuum cleaner to cut hair probably turned alot of people off. Surprisingly they still sell it at http://www.flowbee.com but come on, are there really people still buying it?
I'm sure countless beauty colleges across the U.S. and abroad, have nothing good to say about this device. (Although, it probably gives a better hair cut than most beauty college students ;)
SyQuest media removeable disks... never sure if removeable was a reference to the disk or the media that it randomly erased.
I'll give another vote for Divx too.
Gasoline engines? Over a long term they've been highly inefficient and grossly polutant.
VHS-mini, or VHS-C or whatever that was called.
the original Disk Camera (film version, looked like a viewmaster reel)
8track tapes
Apple newton??
sliced bread
The self destructing DVD's that would ... well, self destruct like 24 hours after you rented them and opened the package
I don't know wtf John Doe is talking about: smart boards are in almost every classroom at my high school and the teachers freaking love them. They replace chalkboards/whiteboards and save notes in an electronic format.
but the worst flop: definitely MINIDISC
fit like 10 cds on a minidisc? my ass! you had to sit there and record them like a cassette tape
Apple Newton
Windows ME
Apple Servers
I think the iomega hipzip was a particularly abysmal shitstorm in the vast sea of shitty gadgets...the 40mb mini disk style things were whack....when they first came out my dad went out and bought (with good intentions and misguided optimism) like 5 of them for all my familly....it was a novel concept...but who wants an mp3 player that is not only huge, butt-ugly, fully & constantly skippable but only holds 40mb worth of mp3's anyway? not me, sir. :p
Strategic Defense Initiative / STARWARS / SDI
The only way Ronald Regan could have messed up any more with this project, is if he penned Epp 1 & 2 for Lucas's movies...
My Vote is for the Divx Player. That sucked hard!!!
Sony IP Series Handycam
Apple Newton
Windows ME
Apple Servers
By a long shot it has to be COLD FUSION:
Cold fusion is the generation of anomalous excess heat at low temperatures. It began with experiments using an immersed palladium electrode activated in heavy water. In March, 1989, when the achievement of cold fusion was first reported in the press, electrochemically induced reactions were very difficult to reproduce.
What about Microsoft BOB?!!? That sucked big time!
MPX!
I'm thinking that the old school air conditioned suit takes the cake. Like the one on this page.
http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/titles/pd_nr_031.php
Its not the fact that an air conditioned suit is a bad idea, rather...pumps on the bottom of shoes with tubes going everywhere doesn't appear to be the best way to go about it.
cybiko
sun glasses with a tv screen in them
zip drives
This is an easy one. If the concept of 'gadget' is very broad, then it has to be the 'unsinkable' SS Titanic. The word 'Titanic' is interchanged with spetacular failures nearly one hundred years after the event.
i'll second 3com's audrey. does anyone even have one of these? my guess is 3com must've dumped all the unsold units into the canyon w/ atari's E.T. cartridges.
or how about that cuecat scanner? now there was a great idea.. hey, i've got like all these barcodes on my cereal boxes and shit that i couldn't care less about.. why the hell hasn't someone released a sextoy-looking product where i can scan those codes into my pc?
absolute genius.
The Nokia N-Gage makes my gaming wang flacid.
Old Skool.
The Apple III.
Blew from day 1. Blows today.
Pulled before less than 75K units sold.