As technology evolves, there are bound to be some bumps in the road; some gadgets which seem like a great idea at the time, but are eventually revealed to be epic flops. This is a list of some of my favourite gadget flops from recent history.
Sega Dreamcast
When I was a young pup Sega used to compete with Nintendo to be the games console of choice in playgrounds all over the country. Then Sony came along and changed all that with the launch of their Playsation. Sega finally gave up the fight just 3 years after its UK launch in 2002, announcing that it was switching its focus from making hardware to just making software.
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Sony MiniDisc
I had a Sony MiniDisc when I was in high school for about 5 minutes before I got bored of it. The idea behind the MiniDisc is it was like CD but smaller. It was a pity that the designers at Sony didn’t see the MP3 revolution which was just around the bend. The Sony MiniDisc trudged on for most of the 90’s, however thankfully it seems that Sony let that one finally go to the gadget neverland.
Amstrad E-m@iler
Having the misfortune to look like an early 90s IBM trying to procreate with a telephone, the E-M@iler charged lucky users to check their email, once they'd wrestled their way past a calamitous keyboard and OS. Its USP - that it allowed anyone to email - looked out of date from the moment it hit the shelves in 2000.
Robot Vacuum Cleaner
This is the one I wish the designers and tech bods had got right. It promised so much and delivered so little - What was promised as the gadget to end domestic suffering turned out to be a wheelie bin lid driven by three bickering, blind mice. Not only do these machines take hours to get around your house, they usually fail to pick much up, too.
Segway
We thought we were given legs to walk, it turns out this is not true, or at least that is what Dean Kamen tried to convince us in 2001 which the launch of his Segway. The personal mobility Scooter/bike/ personal green transportation – whatever it is, never really took off with only 50,000 units shifted in 8 years. For the sake of our waist increasing nation let’s be thankful for that!
Zune
Billed by Microsoft as an iPod Killer but by everyone else as the iPods ugly cousin. Zune was criticised for its ugly design, bad sound quality and flawed music sharing interface. Apple never really had anything to fear.