The Decades' Darwin Awards for Technology

Ordinarily, Wasabi tries to laud the merits of IT’s greatest achievements; however, on occasion, we find ourselves shaking our heads when wading through the weeds to find such achievements.  As such, here are some of those weeds that we would affectionately call, “The Worst Technology Ideas of the Decade”.  We know, we know... Tell us how you really feel…

Pop-Up Ads

Blinking ads, flashing banner ads, singing ads. Escaping advertising was already a hopeless

endeavor online in the early 2000s when Web browsers introduced pop-up ads, an almost unavoidable trick by websites to generate revenue. Hundreds of angry Facebook groups have been created to deride pop-up ads. Though pop-up blockers were eventually created, you still never know when you're going to click on a link that will bring a flurry of pop-up ads or freeze the computer screen altogether.  In short, is there anyone on the planet that likes pop-up ads?  Isn’t that the antithesis of what an ad is supposed to do?

Bluetooth Toolsets

You’re probably wondering why we put Bluetooth headsets on our list of worst tech, but if you are, then you are probably the type that sees practicality of the fanny pack. You see, although Bluetooth headsets are fabulous devices and quite practical for today’s bustling world, they make people look like complete unadulterated TOOLS!  That’s it, that’s really our only beef with Bluetooth headsets. It’s always those beyond-business-casual dressed guys who cut in line at the coffee shop and when you try to call them out on it, they point to their Bluetooth headset, mouth to you “on the phone,” and expect to be pardoned.  Google “Glass” are you listening?

Glass-Holes

Ok, while some conceded that cloud technologies have enriched their lives (and 18% of people said they used wearable technology), there was a strong consensus that Google Glass’s privacy wasn’t enough to convince them. More than half of those polled said that their privacy concerns are a barrier to adoption; two-thirds believe Google Glass should have regulations, and one in five wanted the device to be banned entirely. And, of course, wearing a cyborg-like face shield isn’t going to earn people any points at a party. There’s an inherent narcissism in Google Glass that stems from its use case — a wearer projects that he or she is more concerned with making sure that a notification is never missed than talking with other people, or once again, making people look like a complete TOOL!  How many times do we have to go through this?

Cruel Earbuds

Headphone makers rejoiced when Apple continually packaged these uncomfortable white earbuds with every new iPod it came out with. Even though it is quite courteous of Apple to include free headphones with your pricey iPod purchase, when you wear them it kind of feels like Apple’ is shoving rocks in your ears.  After a short time wearing them, they produce an aching sensation in the cartilage of your ear.  Cartilage doesn’t take to contortion for prolonged periods of time without complaining about it. We only criticize because we feel Apple needs it—it’s healthy. We wonder how many pairs of those white earbuds get thrown away—or electrocute people and then get thrown away—a year?

Auto-Tune

It's a technology that can make bad singers sound good and really bad singers sound like robots. And it gives singers who sound like Kanye West or Cher the misplaced confidence that they too can croon. Thanks a lot, computers.  Nuff Sed.

Farmville, Biggest Productivity Killer since the Flu

Farmville, the most addictive of Facebook games is hardly even a game — it's more a series of mindless chores on a digital farm, requiring the endless clicking of a mouse to plant and harvest crops. And yet Zynga, the evil genius behind this bizarre digital addiction, says more than 10% of Americans have logged in to create online homesteads. How many hours of lost productivity do that translate to?

The Facebook IPO

Yah, it sounded like a good idea at the time. Priced at $38 per share on May 18, the company had lost more than half its value by September. That's more than $50 billion. Scores of lawsuits were filed and calls to reform NASDAQ and the way the deal — one of the biggest ever for a technology company — was structured. Despite a buy-back plan and an announcement by founder Mark Zuckerberg that he isn't selling any of his shares, the company faces downward share pressure with the prospect of employees being able to unload millions of shares by late October and investors during a narrow period in each of the next two months.

Surface RT

Surfact RT… 2 ½ years in the making, cost as much, but isn’t the iPad.  Doesn’t run old Windows Apps, and the biggest flop idea is putting a keyboard with a tablet, which if you think about it, defeats the tablet concept all together.  On top of that, Microsoft paid for a major campaign emphasizing that their new devices are detachable and click together, they did dance routines with the sounds you can make clicking your device together.  Once again, emphasizing no real value to the computing world.  As a result, even though, it “clicks”, it didn’t “click” with the public.

Rotten, Apple

In the middle of a banner year, Apple made a big boo-boo — ditching rival map services on its mobile devices. Turns out, Apple’s maps weren't ready. The results? Deeply unpopular — and inconvenient. On Sept. 29, CEO Tim Cook apologized. The head of the maps unit was later fired.

SOPA Opera

This act/bill was going to stop all online copyright material from being publicized everywhere, from search engines and other blog articles and other websites but its own very website itself, which you would not be able to find the Google search engines, you would have to somehow find a way to find that site on your own. This bill made a lot of people angry, not just the pirates who burn music movies, but big shot websites like Wikipedia and reddit, who provide salient information to access legitimate content.  So much so that many sites worldwide closed down or went on a ‘blackout awareness’ for a whole day to protest against the bill. The bill just fell apart and didn’t even make it to a vote and just faded away. Hmm interesting, kind of like the existence of the internet if that bill would have made it...

HP, Where are you?

Pretty much anything HP tried to do this year was a complete flop, no one uses the HP computers anymore , their laptops were not selling and considering they lost John Rubenstein, who one of the main webOS directors of their company this year they just couldn’t come up with anything innovating. After the year is almost done were still awaiting for their first phone…kinda late on the uptake eh guys?

Amazonian Apple

Until just a few months ago, it was mind-bogglingly easy to get access to someone’s Apple or Amazon accounts, and to summarily wipe out their entire digital existence. The worst part though was that both companies knew about the loophole, and did nothing to shut it down until public outcry forced them to. Amazon was quick on the up take , fixing it almost immediately while Apple took their sweet time to smell the roses and clear the security breach.

TwitterPeek

TwitterPeek was invented for those people who love Twitter but don’t want to surf the Web on their phones—we actually aren’t sure if we know any of those people. At first we thought the TwitterPeek was a joke—that had a lot to do with the combination of its price tag and its overall uselessness—but then we realized people are actually taking this device seriously. Magazines and blogs were reviewing it, Twitter fanatics were buying it and all the while we were scratching our heads. The TwitterPeek was real, it was not a joke. Now, if you have a TwitterPeek and you love it, then by all means call us out on this, but we’re just saying that with so many new innovative multifunctional devices (or just your basic smartphone) we weren’t wowed by the product.

Source(s):

• http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/worst-technology-2000-2010-the-decade-in-tech/10/
• http://blog.simpletuition.com/2012/06/5-worst-tech-inventions-ever/
• http://gigaom.com/2013/06/06/for-glassholes-only-google-glasss-exclusion-problem/
• http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1991915,00.html
• http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/12/28/2012s-worst-tech-ideas-flops-fails-fiasc?videoId=240161921

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 21 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085 x502