Click the image to see the list
When a product or technology is still emerging, it can be tough to call it a flop. In many cases these technologies are still trying to find their sweet spot when it comes to capabilities and usage scenarios.
But while it may be too early to refer to some technologies as flops, it isn't too early to be disappointed by the failures of some originally promising technologies.
(illustrations by Brian Moore)
The past year has seen quite a few exciting new technologies that failed to deliver or actually took steps backwards in their progress. In some cases this was because of overblown promises, in some because of technical limitations and some failures were due to politics and aggressive competition.
However, all of these technologies can take solace in the fact that history has shown many cases where a technology that initially disappointed eventually became a major success.
Click here to see our list of The Biggest Emerging Technology Disappointments of 2007.
eWEEK's Look Back at the Emerging Technologies of 2007
The Year In Emerging Technology: 2007 We take a look at the emerging technologies that were announced or started to gain traction in 2007 and identify the technologies that are most likely to deliver important improvements for all businesses. 2007's Tech on the cutting edge Many cutting-edge technologies were just getting their start in universities and research labs around the world in 2007. Here are just a few of the technologies that are poised to make a business impact in the future.
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Comments (5)
Slideshows might be interesting.
There is even some admirable graphic art.
But the presentation leaves much to be desired !!
Generally, if not always, the slideshow is at least partway off the screen whenever the window refreshes or updates.
-- This would not be a problem if the slideshow updated in situ (as videos do), without the window scrolling.
Of course, for this to be effective, the viewer should at least have an option to size and anchor the slide show frame conveniently, including slideshow controls and relevant additional text.
NOTE -- I have two surprises for you regarding the common nitwit practice of duplicating, word-for-word, each current slide's internal text as an adjacent paragraph in the surrounding text :
__ Nitwit duplication of the slide text, does not provide additional relevant information, although this practice could be replaced or expanded with additional relevant information !!
__ Nor does it compensate much for the inconvenience of needing to manually find and recenter the slideshow frame for each slide selection.
Judging by Ziff-Davis's lack of concern for such issues, I realize that Z-D must be a small fish in a small pond.
As such, one could not expect Z-D practices to have much impact on the IT and Web communities.
But perhaps consider user issues anyway -- like the ones I described above.
It might give your website a cachet and comfort appeal -- a draw for current and new users, instead of the frustrating repulsive effect that it has currently.
And maybe, as you give your users a feeling of being important to you, other website publishers will respect your achievement and follow your lead.
Thank you for your consideration of these user issues regarding comfort and convenience.
Posted by rbloom00 | December 3, 2007 1:51 PM
Although ebooks are growing slowly I don't feel as if they warrant being on this list.
I have been purchasing e-books for several years, but in the past year I have switched from buying as many as 3 or 4 paperbacks a week, and a couple of hardcovers a month, to all my purchases being in one of the e-book formats for my HP Ipaq. Due to disability I can no longer lift or hold a book, but with my Ipaq I can lug a library around with me. The prices also make a difference, plus these days I can get every genre I read, and the most popular authors as well.
Posted by Sandy Kent | December 6, 2007 6:42 PM
Actually the item on the list is dedicated eBook readers, not the eBook format itself. As I say in the item, one of the reasons is that multipurpose smartphones such as the iPhone or the iPaq work well as eBook readers while providing much more additional functionality.
Posted by Jim Rapoza | December 7, 2007 12:19 PM
Correction: almost no one spends tiime talking to businesses that haven't done their homework in virtual worlds, e.g. real world clothing stores whose overpriced Second Life products are inferior to average SL freebies. Residents of virtual worlds aren't awed by a big RL name; deal with it, and learn what people really want.
Posted by Melissa Yeuxdoux | December 7, 2007 7:33 PM
Wow! This article has so many things wrong with it. A lot of the technologies mentioned are not emerging technologies. Some were even know that would have no impact this year.
Some these technologies have no direct impact on wireless and mobile....
not worth the time ....
Posted by A disappointed reader | December 7, 2007 10:09 PM