Failed 1990s Tech: Why These 5 Gadgets Didn't Survive
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Gadgets
TMC-4 — 9 years ago(May 14, 2016 11:20 PM)
http://www.cheatsheet.com/gear-style/failed-1990s-tech-why-these-5-gadgets-didnt-survive.html/?ref=YF
The 1990s were an important period for the technology industry, as quite a few things we take for granted today had their origins then and are worth big money now. Microsofts Windows and the Start Menu redefined how we interacted with our PCs, while the World Wide Web revolutionized the way we accessed the internet. Despite all the good things that came out of the 90s, some technology innovations ended up falling flat. -
Speed_Daemon — 9 years ago(May 26, 2016 04:58 PM)
That's a mighty ironic title. You see, the
tech
didn't fail at all, far from it! It's only those particular
products
that didn't make it bigand even that isn't exactly "failure". Let's look:
1.
Apple Newton- This product was simply too costly and too proprietary to be competition to the
Palm Pilot
that it was a copy of. While the
PDA
in general was only moderately successful, once the technology advanced to be able to merge a cellphone with a PDA, the
smartphone
was born. And in case you didn't notice, they're a runaway success.
Sony Minidisc
- I had one.
The minidisc was an inexpensive alternative to the
Digital Compact Cassette
, a product that
really
bombed after the RIAA attacked relentlessly. But the
technology
behind the Minidisc is still winning today. Minidisc was among the first to use
lossy compression
, which is the same technology that
MP3
music uses. Although not successful in volume, Sony's ATRAC is still considered one of the best lossy compression algorithms around. And those tiny
3" optical discs
are still a handy alternative when a 5" disc is just too big to carry. Maybe not a runaway success, but success nonetheless.
Virtuality
- Do I really need to say that
virtual reality
is YUGE these days? It was a product ahead of its time, but the
tech
is burgeoning today.
Video CD
- First of all, I should point out that
VCD
was
a runaway success in Asia, so this claim is completely false. And the
MPEG-1
compression scheme led to
MPEG-2
(used in the
DVD
),
MPEG-4
,
H.264
(used in
Blu-ray
) and more advanced codecs. Not a failure by any measure.
WebTV
- Once again a product ahead of its time. I had one of these too. And just as VR is hot today, OTT (over the top) boxes are
smoking!
Services like
Netflix
,
Hulu
and yes,
Amazon Prime
video are revolutionizing how we watch "TV". And
boxes from Roku, Google and Amazon
are the Next Big Thing today. If you went to NAB this spring, you know what I'm talking about.
In conclusion, Ed Oswald needs to get a clue.
- This product was simply too costly and too proprietary to be competition to the