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10 Failed Technology Trends of 2005
mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case muses on ten trends of 2005 that never panned out. He points the finger at analysts like himself for waxing glowy-eyed at technologies like the BTX form factor and the 64-bit version of Windows XP. On DRM and the Sony rootkit fiasco: 'Hint to the music publishers: It's not going to work. There have been easy workarounds to every system that's been tried, and the more stringent the copy protection, the greater the risk of having angry customers who won't buy CDs. I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.'"
Take iTunes for instance. Wildly successful in the face of its predecessors and competitors. The RIAA doesn't like it because it undercuts their old business model (and these people have worked that one a long time to their great profit) Apple's frisky little model says, "give it to them on a flashy little toy and keep it cheap." CD sales plummet. (RIAA biz model sez: Any flattening of growth or dip in sales is due to piracy!) Reminds me of when Detroit, back in the 70's thought they could continue to do business as usual as those japanese cars started to sell particularly well ("after the price of oil drops again we'll go right back to 454 blown dual carb thingamajigs") Funny they repeated the same erroneous reasoning with 4WD's in the late 90's and into the next century and are now closing plants left and right.
High def video and audio. What's funny is people are fine with the crap we have now. Heck, there's people driving around town with self-installed audio systems in their cars which not only sound awful, but bring Lo-Fi to an all new low -- and they're actually happy with it.64 bit OS, only when you've got apps or a killer must-have game will 64 bit OS be all the rage, even drivers will follow. Until then, like hi-def video and hi-fi audio, it's only in the realm of those who really must have for practical or fashionable reasons.
Digital home: Right. When I was a kid we had this great intercom system that came with our new house, all rooms connected to one main spot, could pipe radio into any room or page anyone. That lasted about a month. After that it was mom shouting up the stairs that supper was ready, someone at the door, etc. Evolution of technology doesn't guarantee it will be any more necessary, but it looks flash and shiny if you've never seen before and might impress the uninitiated. Up to me, I'd worry more about noisy water pipes and insulation in the walls.
"it even comes with high definition squirrels in the attic!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
XP-64 is a failure? How so, because it's on on every desktop? It's not supposed to be. 64-bit at home is still in it's infancy. However that doesn't mean it's not desirable to have 64-bit OSes. At this point, the main point is for developers to be able to convert apps and drivers to 64-bit and get them well tested, ahead of widespread adoption.
However even for that they aren't useless to the end user. HFSS supports 64-bit XP and that's real useful if you want to solve really large problems.
I think it's a mistake to say a technology has to immediatly take off to be a success. Some things are introduced ahead of time, with the knowledge that it'll be a slow adoption process. Id' much rather have 64-bit Windows and Linux NOW when there's still only a few chips on the market than not for another 4 years when we all have the hardware but are starved for software that can use it as happened with 32-bit chips.
I don't see how lossless was meant to be mainstream or an explosive technology. It is generally for audiophiles, geeks, and nerds. Would they call Linux a failed technology? True it could be easy for producers to make portable players capable of playing FLAC or similar, however since when do they play to the minority? This is capitalism, and FLAC is not for the mainstream as most people can't tell the difference, or even care. Minorities rarely win in capitalism.
do.what.promptcmds
From TFA: Consumers don't want multiple standards. DVD was successful because there was only one standard.
One standard? What about +R, -R, DVDRAM etc? Manufacturers love competing standards. They get to sell to early adopters, then sell another unit with identical functions to the poor sods who jumped on to the wrong standard.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
this year it became possible for independent film makers to make high quality 16:9 films for the first time... economically
yes, the sony hdr-fx1 and jvc's offering came out in 2004/ 2003, but dual core became economical this year (really necessary for the editting environment and importing the mpeg stream) and sony introduced it's low cost cmos hdv camcorder
i'm talking economical in something a middle class high school kid could set up with a little help from his parents and some after school jobs: under $5K
that really means something for 2005
the author gripes about hdv content distribution and the big cable and studio players wary of rights management, but that's not really where the story is in hdv: it's in creation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That may be true, one can't even attach an Access database because of "security reasons," but the article doesn't just focus on that aspect of Gmail. He focuses on Gmail helping free email by offering 2GB of storage. In my opinion, that is the very least that Gmail has done. The interface is simplistic and lovely (IMHO, as opposed to his "sleek outlike like" yahoo mail, which I avoid since Outlook bothers me like no other), the conversation threading has made me not use regular email clients, the search features are fast and effecient (faster than Thunderbird), and the labels and filters are easy to setup. Am i a gmail fanboy? Probably, but to call gmail a failure is ludicrous. I'd guess that he used gmail to send a hello world email, then tried attaching something, and then hasn't signed on since.
I have to say I'm glad to see BTX on this list. It seems like it was developed soley to make up for the stupid amounts of heat generated by the P4, with no regard for making anything else better than ATX. How about standardizing all those case connectors into one block of plugs, or consolidating the 3 power connectors I have to hook to my motherboard. If I'm going to switch form factors, I want these obvious things taken into account.
Non gratis rodentus anus
The problem is that in 2004 we thought it was going to revolutionize email.
2005 came and went with no significant advances in gmail, and it's still in beta mode with some annoying issues. It's basically just another webmail service now.
It was hyped to high heaven in the beginning of the year and ended up being virtually irrelevant. Hence, it's a failed, overhyped technology trend.
I'm sorry, exactly how have XP 64 and Gmail been failures? Both have been very successful. ESPECIALLY gmail
This article is total crap. Stop posting shit like this
- The BTX Form Factor
...maybe on the MacIntosh New Year in two weeks
I'm writing this on a powermac now with the same sort of cooling system...
- High-Definition Video on the PC
this one looks like it's only delayed... the content is now showing up on iTunes... and since it looks like it's going to be very successful, it's only
a matter of time before they offer HD too.
- Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Tiger has been a huge success. (it's 64-bit)
- iPod Competitors Emerge
What's so wrong with the iPod that they're wishing for competitors. None of the competitors really care about mac users, so why should I care about their products? And why do we want WMV to win the DRM battle? And why is the iPod entry level?
ExtremeTech my ass. more like WhatTheGuysWorkingAtBestBuyThinkIsExtremeTech
Shit I wanna see the Mac user list of top ten disappointments....
10. Market share still sucks
9. iPod still can't do bluetooth
8. Market share is what 3% or something now
7. Turns out the G5 wasn't a supercomputer on a chip
6. No Civ IV
5. Have to wait more than 3 months for 10.5
4. Mac mini turned out not do have anything to do with Tivo
3. Damn, that market share sucks
2. OS X still can't read minds
1. Fucking market share
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
The N-Gage was a complete failure, and is in fact a joke among gamers. For instance, on the gamefaqs board you can insult someone's intelligence by saying "You bought an N-Gage didn't you?" Recently there was a topic posted on the boards whose title was "I...got...an...NGAGE...for...Christmas". The topic got over 250 responses (most topics don't get more than 20) nearly all of which were other users who wrote "LOL" or some form of condolense.
1 1198
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=
Why do you need to send an EXE attachment? Seems like a sane thing to forbid.
.EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.
.EXE files, but not so easy when the OS vendor chooses to hide the suffix from her, provides easy ways to disguise the suffix, adds support for some arbitrarily-large number of additional executable file types, and ships a macro engine designed to run the content automatically without asking first.
.ZIP file containing an .EXE. This is a case where Microsoft did some stupid things and Google responded with a hearty, "Hey, wait for me, guys!"
Some people actually work with
Before Microsoft started allowing email to execute code, email viruses were impossible.
You don't have to prohibit executable attachments to disallow automatically-executing content. Google has thrown out the baby, bathtub, and half of the house's indoor plumbing.
Microsoft's dumbass move was making everything executable. It's easy enough to tell Grandma not to click on
It's not appropriate to fix any of those problems by preventing me from sending my customers a
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Writing "beta" on something doesn't make it a beta test version. The term "beta test" has a pretty specific meaning in software development, though sadly few people remember what it is and why it's important these days.
If you release a piece of software to the general public and charge for it (as in Microsoft) then it's not a beta, it's a product. If you advertise a web service widely and get loads of people to use it routinely (as in Google) then it's not a beta, it's a live service.
The use of "beta" on everything, even things you're treating as a real product in all other respects, is just the latest meaningless buzzword, and a pathetic attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the quality of your product or service. It will sting Microsoft and Google alike soon enough, as neither customer opinion nor (if applicable) commercial partners or courts ruling on disagreements will give it much weight.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I agree with you to a certain degree — I mean, the music industry is actually attempting to fix their product by crippling it for the paying consumer (while having little or no effect on the illegitimate distribution of files). But while there are artists who are embracing new business models, it is presently completely unclear what the new business models for artists will be, and artists who are already stuck (being treated terribly, in many cases) with the existing giants are in danger of being treated even worse by these companies, while having no immediately obvious way out.
I feel guilty if I pirate music because the artists aren't being paid. I don't buy into music which is DRMed in any way, because I refuse to buy a crippled product for what is typically a completely ridiculous price. But when I can buy a traditional CD, I buy it. I mean to start using an online service which does not implement DRM, but still many artists are left out here, and often by no fault of their own — they're musicians, not businessmen, and this is not something they'd ordinarly be able to get particularly good advice on.
Never stop feeling guilty about pirating music, unless you are still buying it from fairer systems. The fact that some companies use unfair means does not give one free reign over media. The artist deserves to be paid for their work in some way, and there is always fantastic music to find at terms you agree with if you're willing to look.
I agree with you on this one. In my book, GMail has done a lot more than just up the ante on disk space.
I use my GMail account as my primary account. I've got three POP3 accounts at various places, plus Yahoo and Hotmail, but GMail is where my "legit" e-mail goes. The Hotmail account gets handed out anywhere I figure SpamBots are searching, so it usually has 200+ messages, all of them crap. Fitting place for it, if you ask me.
We use Outlook at work (company-mandated). I've got Thunderbird loaded on my machine at home (decent RSS aggregation). And yet, I'd still rather use GMail for e-mail functionality. The message threading is simply too useful.
When e-mail clients can match that functionality, allowing me to follow a thread of e-mail messages as easily as following a thread on Usenet, I'll find a reason to switch. When I can manually reorganize message threads (so that messages with different subjects are included), I'll be even happier. You guys at Google listening?
At first, I thought "labeling" messages was a nuisance. Then, I started using it, and promptly found the older, "folders" method to be constraining.
The fact that I don't have to wait for the whole screen to redraw every time I expand a message is simply icing on the cake.
These aren't just "show-off" features, which look nice on the "features" list but never get used. There are plenty of practical, useful and heavily-used features here. The fact that no one else has copied them (yet) doesn't mean they're a failed trend. It just means the rest of the world hasn't caught up, yet.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
The article is full of hype driven and M$ friendly contradictions. He claims to use FLAC and says that nothing else will do for him. Me wonders where he gets better than CD quality Audio. Two pages later he recommends formats for the hoy-palloy:
To be fair, Microsoft's WMA standard has a lot going for it. The audio quality of WMA files is generally pretty good, and the DRM can be pretty flexible.
Sure. Windoze is good enough for you, so suck it and that DRM up. Like that's advice I want.
You will both have to excuse me while I avoid all of that BS by running Debian from ARM to 64bit and beyond. OGG too can be lossless, but I can't tell the difference and don't bother. Apple is beautiful and works, but my freedom is more important to me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Just add some other extention like .xxx to your exe files and it will go through. People may not use gmail so widely because you need invitation (it is still beta) to sign up but I see that more and more people who require reliable email service use it more and more often. To have yahoo or hotmail as your primary email for business dealing was considered as a sign of incompetency or computer illiteracy and thus not bringing any trust. Today you can proudly announce your gmail address and be regarded as the power user and as an expert in your own field.
I just stopped listening to music.
I gave up and started listening to public radio.
Where's that in their business model? =)
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
This guy mentions twice in the article that he's a big fan of losless audio compression. That's all the proof I need that he's a hype-driven goofball who really has no clue.
I've been a musician for over 20 years. I can easily hear the difference between single coil and humbucking pickups, and between a fuzz pedal that uses germanium trasistors and one that uses silicon. Those are subtle differences that the vast majority of people can't hear. What I can't hear is the difference between a properly done 192kbps/44khz mp3 rip and one made with FLAC. Now, I'm not saying that means that no one on earth can. I'm sure there are golden-eared freaks out there. But I would seriously crap out a brick if this dillhole Case could.
And before you let me know what a moron I am, be sure to conduct a blind A/B test yourself. It has to be blind, or it's just not scientific. Have a friend play two different versions for you, one a high quality mp3, and one FLAC, and see if you can tell. Since the odds of guessing correctly are 50/50, you need to repeat the experiment several times to be sure that you weren't just lucky. I'm here to tell you, it's a rare, rare person who can choose correctly ten times in a row.
And yet this guy is surprised that hardware makers haven't put these lossless codecs into their players? Most people are happy with FM audio quality, let alone FLAC. Case is useless, as proven by the fact that he hyped so many technologies that went nowhere. Extremetech, indeed - extremely stupid.
Maybe Microsoft should permabeta the next Windows to avoid any quality concerns. "Oh, don't worry about that IE security flaw, it's just beta."
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Now that's something that should definately be on the list. Remember all those articles how the cell was going to be the biggest competitior for PCs and how we were going to have cell processors in everything and link them and do all sorts of cool and weird things? Well, suddenly, nobody talks about it anymore...
"People's problem is not that they are mortal, but that they are suddenly mortal" Terry Pratchett
CD sales havent plummetted? They havent? Really?
s tm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4566186.
And to all those who say that the Music Industry needs a new business model - why should they get one? THe old one works fine when people ACTUALLY PAY for the product rather than infringing copyright and getting it off someone else. Just because people want their product for free doesnt mean their business model is broken, it simply means people will get for free whatever they can.
As a consumer, you have two choices - buy it or go without. There is no justification to the third option that people on here assume - take it anyway.