Five over-hyped technologies that were dead on arrival

Technology world can be brutal. A lot of effort, love and patience go into building a product, which can be easily forgotten and termed as a flop if it fails to click with consumers. In the past, there have been technologies hailed as life changers or to-be trend setters, but have fallen flat as quick as they rose to popularity. Here are five such over-hyped technologies that were dead on arrival.

 

3D TV

3D TVs were deemed to be the next big thing, and today the segment has been completely wiped off. Sony and LG, the last two companies offering some support, have decided to pull the plug on 3D. The technology was just a product of the hype around the success of Avatar.

 

It was marred with limitations like content, software support, additional accessory, and other issues like dizziness and headaches. It didn’t have influencers and many believed that 3D wasn't for them.

 

Google Glass

Google Glass was innovative, futuristic and everything a sci-fi fan desires. It is dead for being a future that nobody wanted. Though Google says the Glass is alive in the background somewhere helping the project Aura. But as a standalone product, it was too creepy.

 

After all, who would want a camera pointed towards them at all times. A $1500 Enterprise Edition that was later open to all soon saw Google witness rather low adaptability and even social media accounts related to promoting the Glass were killed.

 

Netbooks

I remember walking into a Republic Day sale at a popular electronics store and spending roughly Rs 19,000 of my hard earned money to buy a netbook back in 2009. It could never replace a laptop, and lesser I used it, the better I felt. All that hype about making smaller and cheaper laptops were a disaster right at the beginning. Today no one manufactures a netbook. Not, even Asus who pioneered the segment with its Eee lineup.

 

N-Gage

Nokia went head on with Nintendo's Game Boy with the N-Gage. Those were the good times for Nokia. It was in 2003 that N-Gage was launched and talked about for its unique hardware that was ready to take on the handheld gaming world. But, it was the limited support for games and clunky hardware that didn't really take off. 

 

Google+

Google has tried its hand at just about everything, and has a pretty much decent record of succeeding. However, there's one thing that Google couldn't ace at – a social networking site. It has a track record of failures like Orkut, Buzz, Wave and Friend Connect. So, Google+ was looked upon with suspicion right from the start.

 

Firstly, Google+ was built to combat competition and tied down to its own services. This ensured that the service never brought out a social media experience like Facebook or Twitter. Though there was initial excited, it faded down to almost nothing as soon as the product hit the markets. All in all, it was dead on arrival and the only good thing to come from it was Hangouts.