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The Worst Tech of Q2 2006
ClickOnThis writes "CNET has an article on the Worst tech of Q2 2006. Their rogue's gallery includes: Segway Polo, the 'Nyko Intelligent Remote 360', and a dishonorable mention for the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray format war. My personal (un)favorite is the appropriately-named Pantech 300 mobile phone, which is so small you could almost swallow it. From the article: 'When it's in your hand, you will feel like Gigantor. But it's a trick. You are not Gigantor. And if you're at a monster truck rally, bully convention, or Hell's Angels hangout while you're using it, you'll catch some hell for being Mr. Fancy Li'l Mini Phone. A wedgie, Kick Me sign, or stop-hitting-yourself situation might ensue.'"
360 Red Lights of Death
I think the record is up to someone who is on their SEVENTH!!! 360 replacement unit.
It is bizarre to see 360 owners talk about how lucky they are with only have to have gone through one or two replacement 360s. Or how 'impressed' they were with how quickly Microsoft sent the delivery truck to pickup their dead 360. Boggle. It's like airline passengers bragging about how a certain airline has the best bodybags when confronted with the abysmal safety record of the airline they are flying on.
The failure rate of the Xbox 360 hardware is so beyond any other piece of electronic hardware it has to be costing Microsoft insane amounts of money to keep the 2 million or so poor sods with 360s from storming the Redmond headquarters. Free games, waving fees for out of warranty failures, insane amount of money on shipping units to and from Microsoft for replacement.
What is funny about the whole Xbox 360 hardware failure fiasco is after the first Xbox marketplace failure this was the one where Microsoft was supposed to get things right and take over the console world.
Heh, so much for that plan...
I laughed my head off. This is one of the funniest articles I read in a long time. Maybe the fact that I love lists like this added to the fun. BTW, it seems many people like to be annoyed or we wouldn't have lists like this :-) I can't wait for the Worst tech of Q3 2006!
-- Cheers!
The review was shorthand for "Pantech didn't send us swag or phones on 'indefinite' loan so here's the payback". The inclusion in the worst list is "They not only didn't send any swag, they even accused us of wanting bribes when we called and complained about it".
Cnet used to be decent a few years ago; now it's frankly best ignored.
Oh, and I'd say the Nintendo name change is probably one of the better PR coups this year. Perhaps the reviewers didn't get a free DS Lite either.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Yeah, I'm totally perplexed by this. I looked at their "review" of the phone, which is really just a couple of sentences inexplicably listing its smallness as "con". Did they forget about the ability to duct tape bricks to the phone if they have some bizarre desire for it be larger?
And yes. The phone--not that small. Not nearly small enough.
The US cellphone market seems to be plagued by two awful things:
back in the 19th century.
I think, the Segway will be my relief when I get old and can't walk as good as now. It should be a nice replacement for those grandma walking aids that must be used these days.
So, I don't think the segway is a bad thing at all. looks stupid, but hey... %)
I'ts more that Tim Moynihan, David Rudden, and Karen Spiegelman think that people at monster truck rallies, bully conventions, and Hell's Angels hangouts don't appreciate small technology. How many people who go to monster truck rallies actually own monster trucks?
Shouldn't we wait to see how many people actually buy it before calling it ingenious marketing?
Okay, am I the only one who thought the video of Woz was ridiculous? I mean, of course it's ridiculous, but more specifically he goes on at limited but noticable length about how he's so good at this that they keep having to change the rules to minimize his dominance. The interviewer goads him on a bit, but really, he seems pretty conceited throughout the whole interview. I haven't had much experience watching him in the past, so it could be that he's always this way. But good God, the man is playing a full-size version of table hockey, more or less, with minimal expenditure of energy and a silly helmet, and all he can do is brag about how much better he is at it than everyone else.
...
All that said, it DOES look like goofy fun. I guess the contrast between the World Cup (twenty-two guys from all over the world and a ball, running their butts off for close to two hours) and this (a bunch of people with lots of resources riding fabulous machines around and whacking at stuff) got to me, though.
Wait, I just basically described auto racing, too, and I love auto racing. Ah, hells bells, I gotta rethink this one
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Assuming you have a GSM carrier (Cingular or T-Mob), you *can* move the SIM card to another phone. And there's a glut of "unlocked"[*] phones available on EBay and from online retailers, which will accept any SIM card. With CDMA that Verizon uses, of course, you actually have to *tell* the carrier that you're changing phones, since there aren't swappable SIM cards in that system. The phone that you get with the service? You can unlock the thing with a variety of 3rd party utilities and then sell it yourself on EBay.
you need to try and find some not-awful intersection of the two, and end up with a phone that has had many of its abilities intentionally disabled by the carrier.
Again, online retailers to the rescue. You can buy phones from Europe with factory firmware installed. Look for a phone that also does 850 MHz - otherwise you'll have weak signals in some places. The only problem with this approach is that factory firmware sometimes isn't optimised to work well with the carrier - i.e. I used a Siemens SK65 phone with Cingular for a while and you weren't able to set the delay before a call went to voicemail and also voicemail notifications were slightly screwed up. (Good phone otherwise, except for the lack of 850MHz capability!)
-b.
[*]- US cell carriers "lock" their phones so they only accept *their* SIM cards until an unlock key is entered or new firmware is loaded. You can generally get the unlock codes from them after your 1- or 2-year initial agreement expires. (Use the excuse that you're going to a remote area of Upper Tadjikistan with no service ;)