You should watch how you spell "DivX" - you spelled it according to how the codec people spell it and they might get a bit angry about it. I believe you mean "DIVX" which is the Pay-per-use proprietary disc format.

Although the first part about having to buy a special DVD player does fit both, I don't imagine the codec people would like you referring to discs with their video format as "self-destructing".

Your list is wrong on 2 points.

1) It's DIVX not DivX -- 2 different products

2) It's SoftRAM95 that was released for Windows 95, SoftRAM was for Windows 3.1, and it wasn't a technology that "flopped" it was a fraud.

How on earth can you claim the network PC (or terminal) is a flop? Have you ever looked at citrix and terminal server?
This is pure client(network PC)/server...

Check citrix's revenue and then try to sell that off as a flop.

Also I think you have vaporware and flops confused. Speech recognition isn't a flop... it just never reached maturity (yet).

Good point on the DIVX versus DivX (especially since I like the second one). I'll see if I can get that fixed.
On the point about network PCs, despite the success of Citrix I will still argue that it is a flop because of the initial claims of the network PC, which if you remember was going to completely replace stand-alone PCs and make them an oddity of the past.

I do not think that Speech Recognition was a flop more than it is an emerging technology.

Looking past the "Dear Aunt, let's set..." incident, Windows Vista has stronger speech recognition than most software titles, and Dragon has been making a profitable business on the idea. Furthermore, the blind community has very good tools for Speech Recognition available(albeit for a high price).

E-books are another developing technology. Once the technology catches up to the market (1000 DPI screen that is readable in dark or bright environment) you will see printed books go the way of the audio tape.

When that happens, you will see a whole bunch of publishers scratching their heads, just like the music industry is doing now.

Speech recognition failure can be dropped squarely on M$ofts shoulders and it's abysmally poor resource management. Back in '95 on a PII266 I had OS/2 running with VoiceType perfectly. I could wander around my office talking to the system, dictating letters and faxes or navigate websites. M$oft was allowed to illegally force good developers out of the market killing the app base for OS/2 and OS/2 itself. By my estimate, we're about 7 to 8 years behind where we could be with computers due to M$ofts incompetence.

I rarely read Pint Books. I prefer e-books. Most of my reading now is e-books lit format on Pocket PC. MS Reader has wast array of features. People can purchase e-books online (http://www.ebooks.com/), or there are plenty of free available (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page). I don't think it is a failed technology.

It's an interesting distinction on when a product moves from emerging to flop to successful. If I had done this list a few years ago I almost certainly would have chosen Push as flop. But the rise of RSS launched a successful new interation of Push. Who knows, in a few years things like speech recogniton may no longer be on lists like this.

I can see your point about the network PC.
Though in my opinion you are comparing a vision to a product. Yes a vision would be to replace it all completely. And yes the vision was a flop.
As a product I do reckon it's a succes. Seeing that where possible and financially viable fat clients are being replaced.
If you follow your line of thinking though eBooks are a flop too. Yes the product will ship. But no they'll never replace books competely (I don't think so Stan).

I reckon it's all just in a name. Vision as a flop or product as a flop.

I like the distinction of vision as flop. I would also argue that the majority of Citrix implementations are on fully functional PCs, not on terminals or anything like the original Sun network PCs.

Regarding your list, both e-Books and speech recognition have been crucial for supporting people with disabilities. From the historical perspective, innovations have often resulted from the efforts of people working on developing assistive technology solutions. The recommendations for addressing web accessibility for the visually-impaired, to separate content from presentation, is the foundation for the ability to have web content re-purposed for different devices with varying screens.

Some of the more recent successes, such as PodCasts, may also have a major impact on the direction these technologies take. There's also the likelihood of emerging technologies having more success as they can be integrated (speech navigation of e-books).

One metric for an emerging technology being extremely sucessful would be its impact on changing standards. For intance, it will be interesting to see if the high-definition/DVD standard of 16:9 will lead to all screens based on this aspect ratio, regardless of their size.

Good stuff on the "Good Tech Goes Bad" article...for a healthcare angle, check out http://www.mdng.com/archive_issue_detail.cfm/article/55/ (free registration), which talks about voice recognition, smart cards, etc., and how those technologies never seemed to work on the healthcare side for a multitude of reasons.

Jim,

Great overall piece on 10 Emerging Technologies that flopped, but I think you really missed the mark on one of them in suggesting that speech recognition has not advanced.

I routinely use voice input to create large documents, complex formatting, and presentations (and the occasional large email), and all at a high level of accuracy and speed: I type at only about 30-40 WPM but speak at about 150 WPM. For me, this is REAL productivity.

And yes, this response was done entirely by voice. This stuff really works now.

Well, some of the speech recognition vendors are also responding to this as well. I'll test some out over the next few weeks and see how they far. Though I think if you go to the discussion above of vision as a flop than it would still qualify no matter what. (I for one still remember the claims of offices full of people dictating to their PCs rather than typing and risking carpal tunnel)

I'd also have to put the CueCat in the Vision as a flop category. There's no question "Plan A" sucked, but they never "got" it. Were it not for the draconian licensing, and actively suing violators, CueCat could have been a different success. Hardware hackers found a great platform that could be easily modified to work as a general purpose bar code scanner. Had Digital Convergence chosen to sell the little buggers for say $20 to anybody who wanted to BUY one outside their giveaway business model (instead of suing them), they might still be around today. There IS a place in the market for inexpensive, yet functional bar code scanners. Instead, they stuck to a dumb marketing idea, tried to hide behind the DMCA and sued themselves out of existence.

Regarding people confusing "DivX" with "DIVX":

I believe that the codec group chose the name DivX some time after the ill-fated pay-per-view DVD system had the DIVX name.

I'm not surprised that people confuse the two.

I ask you, would you develop a cool new car and name it "Edsel" after the unsuccessful car company?

Sorry, Jim, but the Sony e-Reader proved to me that e-books are far from a flop. I have been using the e-reader for months, and I now don't want to read physical books -- they are too heavy, I can't carry my bookshelf of unread books with me when I travel, and it is "too much trouble" to hold them open to read them in bed, while exercising, or on a plane. I have my quibbles about the Sony e-reader, but for books that are meant to be read cover-to-cover this is now the technology to beat.

Sorry, Jim but if you do this, you need to get your taxonomy sorted out!

Technologies, emerging or not are technologies, e.g., voice recognition. Cuecat is a very poor product implementation of a successful technology - image scanning!

DIVX, PC terminals - products;

eBooks, Facial recognition - Technologies

You may consider doing seperatly emerging technologies, products, and visions. I would personally ignore the frauds!

Joe T.

RE:CueCat As I recall, a lot of freeware was being developed to allow the use of the CueCat as an input device. I know this because I collect Star Wars & Star Trek stuff, and programs were being developed so you could use CueCat to scan the UPC from your collectable and link to a database which would provide descriptions and value.

Unfortunately, the company that owned CueCat sued these developers (they were developing software of their own). Betrayed, no software was ever developed to use CueCat, and the vendor's software never materialized.

I still have my CueCat (and a copy of MS Bob in shrink-wrap right next to shrink-wrap copies of every version of OS/2). I used to get all that stuff for free.

I think you should have included Windows Milennium. If you think I'm wrong those of you who are using it, shout "Me Me, I'm using it"................(silence, some tumbleweed rolls by!)

It is kind of funny how the CueCat had some success as a scanner. Of course, why not? Kind of cool to get a functional hand held scanner for free.

Only the people who want to make easy fortunes on the world eBooks think eBooks are a flop. Project
Gutenberg has hundreds or thousands of sites world wide, and just ONE of them gives away 3 million eBooks a month. That's enough to fill 100 average
US public library book collections. . .every month!
People have been reading PG eBooks on iPods since
iPods were only a week old, not to mention on cell
phones, PDAs, laptops, desktops and huge mainframes.
Right now you can buy enough flash drive space for
under $100 to hold one of the average US libraries
in a format that weighs one ounce, no batteries,
will go through the washing machine etc. and readers
around the world are doing just that. Do a search
on "ebook" and "bomb" and tell me eBooks failed!!!

Even in this era when bombs are SOOO much news...
you still get more hits for eBooks than for bombs.

Take a visit to worldebookfair.com from July 4 to
Aug 4, and you will find an unbelievable selection
of both 2/3 million free eBooks and 110,000 eBooks
from commercial vendors for a total of 787,000!!!

Then tell me again how much eBooks have failed....

Michael S. Hart
eBook's Inventor

Project Gutenberg eBooks can be read on nearly any
combination of hardware and software in the world,
and comprise the oldest "site" on the Internet,
dating back to July 4, 1971.

Hi Michael, thanks for posting on this subject. I am a big fan of Project Gutenberg.

I've read many ebooks that I downloaded from the site, including once reading Moby Dick on an iPaq (worked great on the subway where one handed reading is a big plus though my thumb was kind of sore from all the constant paging down).

However, I do still believe that right now eBooks, especially when one looks at dedicated ebook hardware, have to still be considered a flop. Who knows though. With the recent developments in flexible epaper we may finally start to see formats that will make an ebook reader as easy to use and read from as a book.

it's all redundant bunkum

I think Jim has it right, in light of what his main point was regarding eBooks. We may question only the degree; "Flop" is too strong a message.

However, three points...

One, until you can abuse (rotten word, but for this point it is correct) an eBook the way an average person can abuse a normal book and still use its full functionality, the eBook can and will be considered an excellent second choice.

Two, the power consideration alone makes real books the clear winner. I can read by daylight or candlelight if need be.

Three and most importantly, the pure tactile joy of opening a book; seeing a book passed down from generations past, with all their notes in the margins, in their handwriting; the pride some may feel (myself included) in owning the book itself or getting the author to sign a copy... well folks, until an eBook can do ALL THAT, then I will consider making eBook my first and only choice.

BWAHAHAHA...a spelling lesson from Waethorn.

I dont think the network pc flopped. Thin clients and server based computing are widely used and their use is expanding rapidly.

Its not about who wants a desktop PC but who needs a desktop PC and can justify the increased management and administration cost of it. I would guess that only about 35% of all desktops can be justified. The rest can be replaced with a thin client.

The CueCat can be useful, just not for its intended purpose. There are articles on the web telling which foils to cut on the circuit board to disable encryption and allow it to work like a normal scanner. If you spot a CueCat in its natural habitat--a junk box at a garage sale--give it a home.

I use mine on a USB dongle to scan the barcode on my library card when reserving books online.

Hi

Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!


Bye