As a car enthusiast, I can think of a good one, the Ford Nucleon.
During the 1950s and 1960s, there was considerable interest in nuclear power and its potential applications. This led to the idea of using nuclear energy to propel cars. The concept behind a nuclear car was to utilize a small nuclear reactor to generate steam, which would then power the vehicle’s engine.
Of course back in those days, this was extremely futurustic and some at the time thought this would be a game changer, but ultimately, the safety aspect was one of the biggest reasons why this idea was dropped, and I probably don’t have to explain why it may not have considered to be safe, I mean, it was using nuclear power, so even if the engineers tried to make it as safe as possible, IF something went wrong, it would have been catastrophic.
Ever since then, the interests in the automotive sector has shifted to Electric and Hydrogen.
Still, a very intriguing concept car and idea.
Outside cars, you have blimps, and I personally believe if we tried to make something like a hindenburg today with existing technology, we might have been a lot more successful than back then (as it goes way back to 1930s), there are still some blimps used occasionally, I also don’t believe those use hydrogen(?), but they are not the “game changer in air travel” it was once seen as, although we can’t rule out a comeback.
What about you guys?
Wasn’t there a hubbub about the Segway?
Huge.
Only a few people saw it, mostly CEOs and billionaires. They said it could revolutionize cities, which is technically true, as part of a larger transportation shift. But the rest of the public just heard ‘this will revolutionize the world’. And they didn’t do any focus groups or beta testing or anything outside of their own company, so they didn’t have anyone telling them ‘I’m not gonna pay $5k for a fucking scooter’.
And then they launched, and people started telling them ‘I’m not gonna pay $5k for a fucking scooter’. And then powered skateboards became the Next Big Thing, and then some Chinese companies realized nobody wants to learn to skate just to get around so they put a battery and a motor on a Razor scooter and suddenly Ninebot blew the fuck up.
Then Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway) got killed riding one, and Ninebot bought what was left of Segway.fwiw looks like Dean Kamen is still alive; it was another owner - the one who bought the company from Kamen - died in the accident. someone named Jimi Heselden apparently.
Oh man, I remember the hype over Segway. “It’ll change the world!” Along with the secrecy, like it was nuclear fusion or something.
Ninebot really showed them in the end, by making something nearly as good for like 1/8th the price.
Til the dude who invented Segway died while riding a Segway. That tends to put an end to things quickly.
The Metaverse, I guess? It’s funny how living in a virtual world has been this hyped-up concept for decades and it finally comes out and it’s just kind of…lame for lack of a better word. Maybe it’s too early to tell, but it feels like the Web 3.0 Metaverse push hasn’t lived up to the hype.
Aside from that, I’d say the Xbox Kinect. Maybe it’s just me, but I remember that when the Kinect came out there was a lot of hype about how it was going to revolutionize how people played games. But I don’t think we ever really got a Kinect game that lived up to that hype. To be fair, I remember a lot of articles of people doing interesting things with Kinect it’s just that none of them really had anything to do with gaming.
Did actually think they would pull something off? It was all 100% advertising hype for a knock off VR Chat.
Back in the Windows 8 days, Microsoft tried to push Universal Windows Platform (UWP), a new application format that could run on any devices running Windows 8: desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets and even Xbox without any modification while being much more secure by default.
It failed for a multitude of reasons:
- It was a big break from the previous application model. You had to rewrite everything.
- To improve security, it enforced many limitation that legacy apps did not have.
- While it was the only way to create and distribute apps for Windows Phone and Windows RT (a Windows 8 variant for low-powered laptops) their low market share did not incentivize developers to migrate to or create UWP apps.
- It was strongly tied to the divisive Metro UI of Windows 8. People already hated interacting with this part of Windows 8, they had no desire to install apps that would force them into this UI.
UWP still lives on in Windows 10 and 11 as well as in Xbox One and Series: many system apps are now UWPs, as well as all Xbox games and apps, some cross-devices games from Microsoft Studios and some apps in the Windows Store.
Maybe I’m a curmudgeon, but I hate using “apps” on my desktop machine. They’re always designed to be friendly for touch interface and smaller screen size, and are terrible to use on my 30" monitor with a 1/8" cursor. I just want my menu bar, toolbar on the left, and status on the bottom, please and thank you.
I hate using most apps on my phone. It’s not that I’m a curmudgeon. I’m a developer, and I don’t see any good reason for so many damned apps when a browser works just fine.
You’ll always get asked about apps whenever a new service or whatever is launched. Even here, there’re people asking for a Lemmy/Kbin app.
The worst offenders are the ones who make their mobile site impossible to use so you will download the app. Unmovable banners, incorrectly sized floating menus, and features unnecessarily locked out unless you switch to Desktop mode or use the app. Guess what, I’m definitely not installing it now!
Nah, you’re not. It simply is not possible to have a single UI that works just as well on both a touch-driven 5-inch interface and a pointer-driven 20-inch interface. Different input methods require different UIs. But publishers are lazy so they try to pretend you can.
Nuclear for sure. Reading old science fiction from the '50s is pretty eye opening on what promise it appeared to hold.
In my lifetime, the Genome project. I’m sure a lot of good has come of it, and will continue to do so, but when they first decided to try to decode the human genome, the promise in the air was eradication of so many diseases, increased health and longevity to humanity, etc.
The Internet for sure. It went from something that would allow the entire world to access knowledge, be better informed, make the future a real meritocracy. Instead, we ended up with magats, vaccine-effectiveness deniers, and aggressive stupidity.
The human genome project has been very successful at progressing genetic medicine.
I am willing to accept the absolute worst of humanity on the internet, because we can also have so many amazing things that weren’t previously possible.
Accessibility of information to the masses is incredibly important. Isolated populations can learn about the bigger world, get help, and share their experiences. Friends and families can stay connected. People can work together from anywhere, and create value as a team in ways that weren’t previously possible. When I was a kid it was just a dream, and now we are living it.
This is true, a lot of people, especially some people from older generations like to talk shit about the internet and modern age (not just social media), and it’s effects on us which can be bad but that also depends on the person, with good moderation, internet really is a dream come true isn’t it? And we are living it.
Something we shouldn’t take for granted for sure in a way.
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The Genome project is very interesting for sure, and wow, I am learning a lot of knowledge from others here on this thread because there are some stuff that I had no idea existed before.
Fun fact, we are currently on the 38th major revision of the Human Genome (Google GRCh38). In the 20+ years since we completed the project, we’ve been able to design 100s of thousands of kits for genetic testing of human genetic diseases, anything from inherited diseases like Huntington’s to developed diseases, eg, cancer. Within the world of biotech, it’s one of the greatest achievements of all time.
3D TV.
Let’s be real: most of us knew it was a shitty gimmick.
Both times.
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Google Wave
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The Commodore Amiga was superior to Mac and PC when it came out but unfortunately for the engineers, the business was run by cretins
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Dvorak keyboard layout, maybe
I wouldn’t call the Amiga a flop, it just didn’t survive. It was reasonably successful for a while.
I can simotanously acknowledge and accept two things when it comes to Dvorak.
- It is objectively a better layout.
- I’m not relearning to type. Especially when the rest of the worlds keyboards will be qwerty.
I’ll learn Dvorak when everyone else does. Same with Esperanto.
The rest of the works keyboards are QWERTY by default. Dvorak is everywhere too though. Just a few clicks in Linux, macOS or Windows and you’re set up.
That said, I learned it because I had RSI at the time. 20 minutes a day for about three weeks (when I was young and my mind was absorbent) and I was almost at my original typing speed.
I miss Google Wave. It was my preferred way to collaborate with friends for a long time.
Wave was simply ahead of its time and made by the wrong company. Google never supports anything it creates long enough for it to establish a path forward. Now, people don’t support Google products much because they know Google will cancel it within 3 years.
Google Wave was amazing! My friends and I had so much fun with it, and then it just got abandoned.
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Touchscreen interfaces on work/desktop computers. Twice even! Once in the 90s when touchscreen hardware became cheaper to make, then again around 2010 with Windows 8 and Steve Sinofsky pushing the “everything has a touchscreen interface” approach that bombed horribly.
If fucking windows actually worked half ass with a touch screen, then this would have worked, but windows 8 felt horrible to use and windows in general was just frustrating to use on a touch screen for years after 8’s release.
Windows 8’s UI actually worked really well on a touchscreen, see 10’s nerfed version of how it’s backwards in many ways.
Thing is, the programs for Windows generally didn’t make the switch, and why’d they? The market was still in mouse-cursor mode, and having a UI for touchscreens would probably have even more users up in revolt. So it ended as this jarring mess that MS couldn’t really resolve.
In the 1990s VR was right around the corner, but we didn’t have processors, network, it displays we needed to make it happen. Thirty years on, we have the hardware we need, but it remains a niche/enthusiast technology. Motion sickness remains an issue.
Maybe that’ll change with Apple’s foray into AR.
We’re now running into the soft problems of VR. Things like the weight of the device, the hazards and downsides being disconnected from the real world, the lack of large indoor spaces, etc. are showing the weaknesses in the model of VR we envisioned.
Also, VR platforms are really tightly controlled. PCs got big because you didn’t need to use Dell or Gateway’s App Store to do things. Jail breaking is a thing but not for most people.
Until VR stops feeling like a brick strapped to your face and has true AR capability I don’t think it will get big. And it definitely won’t get big with a bunch of closed ecosystems.
Most people love their proprietary walled gardens. They just don’t think like that.
Yeah that’s certainly a good one, I am still wary of VR, due to how close it is to your eyes.
I am more hopeful about AR though because you are not locked into a virtual world and that extremely close screen to your eyes, it’s basically like see through glasses with computer, hence I am guessing it might be better for your eyes than pure VR?
Cost is going to be an issue for a good while though, and I still don’t think they will ever replace or be as big as phones, as some believe it could be, the portability is just unbeatable with smartphones (flip phones making that aspect even better), although maybe AR can compete with computers more?
I’m personally skeptical but a very interesting and futuristic sci-fi tech for sure.
VR is probably the biggest I’ve seen it already. I got my son a Valve Index about 2 years ago now and it’s still seeing frequent use. There’s quite alot of games out there already. As interested as I was for Apple’s glasses, I’m not sure that it’s going to cause a big revolution in AR/VR. Maybe, it could, but their promo for it was a bit weird and the price seems crazy high for now.
I think the big hold up are the games. The good games require an expensive PC, expensive headset, and a dedicated space. They can’t get returns for big budgets until headsets are common and people wont dump big money unless they think its worth. The only option is the slow burn. It’s a lot of fun but selection is a bit dull once you burn though the big names.
I feel VR/AR could still be the next big thing if they can make a big push and replace monitors.
Personally, I don’t think the Nucleon meets the criteria for being a “flop”. It was just a concept. They didn’t even build a full-size prototype, never mind a production model. By my own definition, the car can’t really be called a flop because there weren’t ever any attempts to sell it.
Cars I do consider flops were the Pontiac Aztec, and if we want to stick to Ford, there’s always the infamous Edsel.
The Nucleon was definitely an oddity, though, and it’s an interesting piece of automotive history. Thanks!
The Aztec was such an ugly but really nifty beast.
Yeah. I especially liked that tent. Looks notwithstanding, it does get points for clever ideas.
Did it actually have disproportionately small wheels, or did the design just make it look that way?
The tent did look really cool. I was hoping it would start a trend, but that never happened.
Not considering vaporware or failed products (e.g. Eolo car):
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The Esperanto language. (Yes, I’m old)
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NFTs.
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Blockchain. Yes, it has its use, but it’s not the pervasive, all-use game changer it was claimed to be.
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Sony Betamax. Pity because it was better than VHS.
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New Coke. Nuff said.
People like to claim that blockchain will sold world hunger but really it’s just a database system so unless your problem is database related blockchain isn’t going to fix it.
The problem they tried to use blockchain to fix was I don’t like the government controlling what I do with the money and knowing I commit crimes. Which isn’t really a database issue it’s a getting caught issue. If you don’t get caught you don’t need to use bitcoin and you don’t need to use blockchain.
Blockchain is a massive innovation for certain industries. Tragically at this point when I read it, I default assume it’s a buzzword techno babble selling point for a system that absolutely doesn’t need it.
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The fediverse is working on it. Shame, really. Wonder if Reddit’s going to do any more stupid shit soon.
It’s gonna take a few more self destructive moves by reddit, but we are getting there. I’m always low key suprised reading people here talk about their reddit accounts. 😂
Just leave!
Minidiscs did surprisingly well in Japan for a while.
Believe it or not, fax machines are also still popular in Japan.
I am more familiar with this than I would like to be.
Intel Itanium was going to take us into 64 bit computing, starting at the high end and working its way down to home pc’s.
and then AMD walked in with x86_64 like “what up i got a fat cock and it’s backward compatible with all your old code” just 2 years later.
Tulips.
Crypto.
