Vaporware - the Tech That Never Was

An anonymous reader writes "CNet has published an incredibly detailed look at the most critical examples of vaporware ever seen in the tech sector. We're familiar with Wired's yearly round-ups, but this decades-long retrospective look at the most promising of all technologies that never saw the light of day, holds some fascinating technology I've never even heard of, including the wonderfully-named three-dimensional atomic holographic optical data storage nanotechnology. 'Continual delays, setbacks and excuses are the calling cards of a product that becomes vapourware. Windows Vista ran the risk of joining the club, and the terrific multiplayer first-person shooter Team Fortress 2 was in production for almost a decade before it was released in 2007. Devoted TF fans feared it would become a distinguished entrant in the who's who of vapourware. You might say Google Mail is in the running, having been in beta since 2004.'"

Comments

Re:PENIS PENIS HAHAHAHAHAHA PENIS LOL ROFLCOPTER

[ianpm]

Good stuff. Is YouTube broken again?

Google Mail

[omeomi]

Nah, not Google Mail. Google's just redefined the meaning of beta...

Re:Google Mail

[esocid]

Exactly. If both Hotmail and Yahoo mail have taken design cues from Gmail, I doubt that Gmail is on its way out. My first choice of commercial email handlers is Gmail, then hotmail for a standard throw-away email.

Re:Google Mail

[Thelasko]

Gmail made a brilliant move by always calling their service a beta release. This way, when your email never arrives, or your personal information gets stolen, it's not their fault... it's just a beta release! Google can always argue that if you want reliable and secure communications, you should use a service that is a final release.

Disclaimer for Google fans: I'm not saying Gmail is not stable or reliable, just stating one possible business strategy.

Re:Google Mail

[Creepy]

for that matter, I don't think it's even their oldest beta -
the former froogle, now renamed google products), predates it by a year or so. I believe froogle entered beta around Christmas 2002 or 2003. Some google labs stuff (non-beta testing and ideas area) is even older.

Re:Google Mail

[rodrosenberg]

HAha with the amount of bugs in software these days like Windows Vista and Home Server the whole beta tag looks like it should be on more products!

Re:Google Mail

[Anonymous Coward]

HAha, yeah man that's hilarious LOL

Re:Google Mail

[ZlatanZ]

I take it you've never heard of Perpetual beta ...

Re:Google Mail

[Brigadier]

I disagree.

I think perhaps they may just not have met there design goals. Everyone complains about companies releasing untested software which intern cripple production. Here it is possible that they want a final tested roll out before releasing the product. I've used gmail for teh past few years and typically four times a year they add some feature. I'm sure once they have realized a final feature set and tested it on a google scale (millions of users) then they will finalize it. However if you want an e-mail app for mission critical stuff simply don't use it.

Re:Google Mail

[Captain Splendid]

I was about to make fun of you for having Hotmail in the number 2 position, but now that I think about it, Yahoo mail has gone to seed lately whereas Hotmail has improved.

Crazy.

Re:Google Mail

[somersault]

Microsoft don't need no stinkin' Beta designation - they have EULAs!

Re:Google Mail

[nacturation]

I've used gmail for teh past few years and typically four times a year they add some feature. I'm sure once they have realized a final feature set and tested it on a google scale (millions of users) then they will finalize it. If it's not feature complete, then it's alpha software. Beta is when it has all the features, but bugs still remain.

Re:Google Mail

[ckaminski]

No, that's a release candidate.

Re:Google Mail

[Thelasko]

Sooner or later you have to decide to freeze the design, fix the bugs, and release the product. Any new features can wait until version 2.0.

Re:Google Mail

[knarfling]

While not an "official" definition, this has always worked for me.

Alpha Release - Unfinished software submitted for Internal testing. In other words, the bugs are going to be so bad that only people who have signed non-disclosure agreements are allowed to see them. Alpha is code-speak for "It doesn't work."

Beta Release - Unfinished software submitted to torture those outside the company. In other words, the bugs are ones we can either cover up, or actually admit to. Beta is code-speak for "It STILL doesn't work."

Re:Google Mail

[nacturation]

No, that's a release candidate. Sorry, you're mistaken.

Beta: Beta level software generally includes all features, but may also include known issues and bugs of a less serious variety.
Release Candidate: The term release candidate refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge.

Re:Google Mail

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

just because it's not open source, doesn't mean they can't use the "release early, release often" method.

for MS, CA, oracle, etc. to release a major version of their products, it's a pain. pressing CDs/DVDs, shipping them, retraing tech support, etc. now, for google, it's as easy as FTPing the new code to a server, that's why "release early, release often" works for GOOG, and not for the others.

and since it's in perpetual beta, they don't even have to bother with support. they're not obligated to give support for something that's essentially a prototype.

Re:Google Mail

[Dogtanian]

Sorry, you're mistaken. Sorry, you're mistaken if you think that a relatively uncited Wikipedia article constitutes authoritative and infallible proof of anything.

What "official" backing (in any sense of the word) do those definitions have? They're not cited, so beyond the fact that there is at best *perhaps* some consensus (possibly temporary)- or perhaps none- between the most recent WP editors on that article (who might just be ill-informed nerds with too much time on their hands), this doesn't mean anything.

Really, I like WP, and some of the more referenced (and less controversy-plagued) articles are really good. Even uncited articles can be pretty useful so long as you use common sense when judging their reliability.

However, your implication that just because something is on WP means *in itself* that it's correct is plain wrong.

Re:Google Mail

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Gmail made a brilliant move by always calling their service a beta release.

Conversely though, they do have to deal with less patronage, because it's potentially unstable.

Re:Google Mail

[rainman_bc]

Yahoo mail has gone to seed lately whereas Hotmail has improved. Actually I'm really impressed with Yahoo mail. I find the interface very useful - at least like a clone of standard email clients... It's runs quite well and makes me happy to use it.

I have nothing admittedly to gauge it again as I haven't used Hotmail for years and I haven't bothered with a gmail account...

Re:Google Mail

[nacturation]

Sorry, you're mistaken if you think that a relatively uncited Wikipedia article constitutes authoritative and infallible proof of anything. An interesting position given that you've cited nothing to back your claims.

Re:Google Mail

[nacturation]

And of course I check afterwards and discover you made no claims either way.

Google Mail is not Vaporware

[romonster]

You might say Google Mail is in the running, having been in beta since 2004 According to this Wikipedia article (or, more specifically, its sources), Google Mail has 10s of millions of users. I'd hardly call that Vaporware.

Re:Google Mail is not Vaporware

[gilesjuk]

Indeed, being out there and being in beta isn't Vaporware. The term typically means it has been announced by a company's marketing department despite no work having been done on it.

Usually it's a way of confusing the consumer into sitting on the fence.

So for example people is about to buy an mp3 player from (for example) Creative, so Microsoft then announces a super improved Zune which probably hasn't even been designed yet. The design team knock up a nice 3D representation in a graphics application and release it.

Re:Google Mail is not Vaporware

[MrShaggy]

I think it was meant to be funny.

Old vaporware

[russotto]

1) Commercial fusion power production
2) Practical flying car
3) Oil from shale and other low grade sources (promised to be viable at $40-$50/bbl)
4) Household robots (or robot overlords, take your pick)
5) Cure for common cold

Re:Old vaporware

[jandrese]

I'd say #3 is probably already in the works, but it takes time for people to get the production going with stuff like that. The price of oil has skyrocketed so fast that new producers have not had a chance to get started yet. Also, there are some of them that are a bit gun shy from when they tried this in the 80s and lost their shirt when the price of oil collapsed. Although I don't see how yet, it is certainly possible that the price of oil could go back down in a couple of years.

Re:Old vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil sands in Canada has been in production for a while.

Suncor has been making money at it for some time.

Re:Old vaporware

[gnick]

4) Household robots Depending on how picky you are about you definition of 'household robots", there are a number of them commercially available. (Note: I would have linked to irobots's web page, but it appears to be experiencing difficulty. Perhaps one of their business robots washed the server...)

Re:Old vaporware

[SatanicPuppy]

It will absolutely go back down. That's just supply and demand.

The thing people miss on supply and demand is that demand isn't any more a constant than supply. As the supply shrinks, price soars, and demand drops. People find alternatives...They drive less, carpool more. In the 80's everyone dumped their gas guzzing american cars for more fuel efficient imports. The decrease in demand drove the price back down.

Then in the 90's along comes the SUV craze, so everyone goes back to buying gas guzzlers. Now we're back in the same boat. Eventually the supply will start constricting on the other end (e.g. "Peak Oil") and alternative fuels will become more popular. The increased demand there will push an increase in suppliers, increasing the supply and driving down the price.

Historically, you never see a price go up forever. Either the resource is finite, or the cost drives the adoption of alternatives, which become popular enough to pull demand away from the original resource.

Re:Old vaporware

[robertjw]

The increased price of oil should make this more viable. It may not have worked out at $40 a barrel, but right now if they can produce it at $80 a barrel it would be a marketable source. It's tough referring to some of this as vaporware - most of them are good ideas, but economics and technology haven't quite caught up with them yet.

Re:Old vaporware

[encoderer]

I dunno about #4.

I have a Roomba. Every day when I come home my carpets in my flat are clean.

My ONLY interaction with Roomba is emptying the bin twice a week and cleaning the brushes twice a month. Probably 1 hour a month, total.

Sure, it's not exactly Rosie, but it's certainly a robot.

Re:Old vaporware

[russotto]

The increased price of oil should make this more viable. It may not have worked out at $40 a barrel, but right now if they can produce it at $80 a barrel it would be a marketable source. It's tough referring to some of this as vaporware - most of them are good ideas, but economics and technology haven't quite caught up with them yet.

But that has been claimed about these technologies for decades. Commercial fusion is always 20 years off. Oil shale production needs oil at $40-$50 barrel. When these points are reached, either the goalposts are moved or LOOK, OVER THERE, A DISTRACTION. Hence, vaporware.

And I wouldn't consider the Roomba to be a household robot. It's hard automation, much like a dishwasher. The fact that it moves doesn't change that. A robot which could do the dishes or laundry without special help (e.g. RFID dishes), that's more along the lines of what I'm thinking of.

Re:Old vaporware

[maxume]

3, 4 and 5 are doing OK.

Oil Sands:

http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/OurBusiness/oilsands.asp

(not a huge amount of output, but it has every appearance of being 'viable', it just isn't productive enough to satisfy demand so much that prices actually drop)

Roomba is a hit.

There are vaccines for the common cold. They aren't perfect, but they are either well marketed enough or effective enough that millions of people get them. If it's the marketing, they are vaporware, if they work, they aren't.

Re:Old vaporware

[MrNaz]

There is already a cure for the common cold. It was invented a while ago, they called it the "immune system". Not sure if it's still in beta though. I believe some l33t hax0r known only as AIDS has found an exploit, but requires root access in order to penetrate the system's perimeter. At the moment, the best defence is from a company called "Durex", who manufacture a patch for your hardware.

Re:Old vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

But the oil cartels don't play with supply and demand. They have the entire supply, and can do what they want with it. While it still profits them, they will keep oil prices high. And, who's to say that the gasoline produced from oil is the only thing keeping prices high? What about the rising demand for power in China, or other developing nations, or even in the US? I'm no expert on these things (thus the AC posting), but cars are not the only thing driving the oil prices high.

Although, come to think of it, the price of raw oil isn't the only thing causing high gas prices; there are numerous taxes (should be listed on the pumps, at least in the States) added. They are there because the city, county, state, and federal governments know we have to get to work and most of us drive, so it's easy money for them.

I do have to agree with you on the finite resource/Peak Oil issue, but are we not still a number of years away from that? I feel that, until then, oil prices will remain high.

Re:Old vaporware

[robertjw]

But that has been claimed about these technologies for decades. Commercial fusion is always 20 years off. Oil shale production needs oil at $40-$50 barrel. When these points are reached, either the goalposts are moved or LOOK, OVER THERE, A DISTRACTION. Hence, vaporware.

Maybe, but what's decades when it comes to technology like this. I remember watching the original Star Trek when I was a kid and thinking how crazy the idea of a handheld communicator was. Now I've got two very similar devices sitting on the desk in front of me. I can't call space, but probably only because I don't have the number for the ISS. Some of these ideas may never be viable, but some are just waiting on the right conditions. You have to remember, we only recently reached a high for oil in terms of an inflation adjusted price. $40-$50 oil 20 years ago equates closer to $80-$100 oil now. Being above that will make shale oil more attainable.

And I wouldn't consider the Roomba to be a household robot. It's hard automation, much like a dishwasher. The fact that it moves doesn't change that. A robot which could do the dishes or laundry without special help (e.g. RFID dishes), that's more along the lines of what I'm thinking of.

A Roomba is a long way from a dishwasher. I agree, not full AI, but it's constantly getting closer. There is continual research into AI and robotics. Eventually this will result in more sophisticated home machines... or skynet. Unless some hard limitations are met in terms of processing power or manufacturing that makes intelligent robots impossible/not cost effective to build, it will happen.

Re:Old vaporware

[Paul Carver]

A Roomba is a long way from a dishwasher. I agree, not full AI, but it's constantly getting closer. There is continual research into AI and robotics. Eventually this will result in more sophisticated home machines... or skynet. Unless some hard limitations are met in terms of processing power or manufacturing that makes intelligent robots impossible/not cost effective to build, it will happen. I agree. My dishwasher is 100% reliable and always does exactly what it's supposed to do. My Roomba is completely worthless. I couldn't find a single room in the house that it can cope with. It is completely unable to deal with area rugs or cords (lamp cords or computer cables). Its drop sensors usually prevented it from driving completely over the edge of a step, but it would just perch precariously on the edge of a step without backing away. Running an old fashioned upright vacuum cleaner is just much less of a hassle.

Re:Old vaporware

[SatanicPuppy]

Eh. I'd bet they'll drop after the end of summer like they usually do. I don't ever foresee it getting "cheap" again though, not until we've got a better alternative...I'm old enough that "cheap" means a dollar a gallon, and we haven't seen that in a long time.

China uses vastly more coal than oil (unfortunately for them) as far as power goes (78%), and we use a decent amount here was well (50%)...Fortunately we have "better" coal (e.g. "black" (anthracite and bituminous) rather than "brown" (lignite or sub-bituminous) coal), but it's still far from clean. The vast majority of petroleum is used by vehicles...Oil is about 35% of the worlds total energy consumption, but only about 7% of the total electrical generation...For the whole world, coal accounts for about 40% of the electrical generation, to give you an idea.

I don't think the current price jumps are artificial though; the oil companies hardly need to do anything, the market is making them rich all by itself. As for taxes, I'm pro gas tax; the easiest way to wean consumers off of their gas guzzlers is to raise the cost to them. Anyway, our taxes are a joke compared to the level of gas taxes they have in europe.

As far as peak oil goes, no one really knows, though everyone claims they know. Some people say it's already happened, some people say it'll be any time now, some people say we've got a century. Lot of the industry groups say we've got ~50 years left, but that doesn't account for changes in consumption.

Re:Old vaporware

[robertjw]

I agree. My dishwasher is 100% reliable and always does exactly what it's supposed to do. My Roomba is completely worthless.

Fair enough. I don't have one, so I can't comment on the quality of the product, but there are a lot of people out there (like you) that have bought one. It may be worthless, but seems like a fairly successful product, and proof that more development into home robotics is a worthwhile endeavor.

Re:Old vaporware

[toleraen]

There are vaccines for the common cold. Influenza != Acute viral nasopharyngitis

Re:Old vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

Our Roomba also sits unused, because it's just too much hassle to maintain. The vacuum is so much easier. However, my 90+ year old mother-in-law loves hers and has had to replace the battery pack and buy more washable filters due to use, not poor design. She can't vacuum under the beds and she doesn't mind sitting on the couch cleaning the Roomba, which drives me nuts. I guess, I just wanted to say, it does work for some people.

Re:Old vaporware

[Alioth]

Well, the Roomba might qualify for (4), but the cure for the common cold has been well known for decades: eat the hottest vindaloo curry you can find.

Re:Old vaporware

[b3m87]

I'm only 20 and i remember when it was $.95 a gallon at least in new jersey

Re:Old vaporware

[t0rkm3]

Ummm Bitumen reclamation is in production all over Canada right now. ConocoPhillips and PetroCanada do a ton of work with it.

Re:Old vaporware

[kesuki]

number 3 is being beaten out by 'tar sand' production see, shale oil, isn't oil at all(it's kerogen), while most tar sands ARE oil. Heavy crude oil, still costly to process, so much so that they burn their own tar sand to produce the electricity (and steam) to refine the tar sand into oil, synthetic oil, or petroleum products. but Canada and Venezuela are the two largest tar sand producers (although America, russia, and the middle east also have large tar sand deposits) the only commercial use in the US is for road paving material.

Most of Canada's oil production is from heavy crude, and they are the number one exporter to the united states by volume of oil. so while people debate in the US about if Utah's tar sands are usable to make oil, we buy from Canada who've been doing this for years now, in fact they use a super large dump truck, the largest ever built, so large it needs cameras for the operator to see anything in front, behind or around him! Each tire is thirteen feet tall and weigh four tonnes each. They need to be replaced after approximately 35,000 miles; at a cost of $25,000.00 a piece.

Re:Old vaporware

[shutdown -p now]

There is already a cure for the common cold. It was invented a while ago, they called it the "immune system". Not sure if it's still in beta though.

It's not in beta, it just gets regular updates for the malware database, though they say the lag for them is pretty bad. For the brave, there are some unofficial hacks available to improve perfomance, as well.

Re:Old vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already a cure for the common cold. It was invented a while ago, they called it the "immune system". Not sure if it's still in beta though. I believe some l33t hax0r known only as AIDS has found an exploit, but requires root access in order to penetrate the system's perimeter. At the moment, the best defence is from a company called "Durex", who manufacture a patch for your hardware.

Must... resist... making jokes... about... back doors...

Re:Old vaporware

[Matt]

I don't ever foresee it getting "cheap" again though, not until we've got a better alternative...I'm old enough that "cheap" means a dollar a gallon, and we haven't seen that in a long time.

Not that long ago. It was slightly below that here in (high-priced) southern California in early 2002.

Re:Old vaporware

[m00seb0y]

Indeed. For more on the subject (and a pic of those cool giant trucks) see this Wired article.

Re:Old vaporware

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be worthless, but seems like a fairly successful product

Wait, wait. When did the discussion swerve into Microsoft Windows?

Re:Old vaporware

[Spatial]

2) Practical flying car Feel free to design a practical flying car, but you'll also need a practical Anti-Retardation Agent inside the car so people can actually drive it without embedding themselves in a tall building...

Re:Old vaporware

[Buelldozer]

Those "super large" dump trucks that have you so excited have been in use in the open pit coal mines of Wyoming (Thunder Basin /Rio Tinto in particular) for years.

Wait until your stuck behind one that's being moved. Takes up the whole Interstate and they go slooooooooowwwwwww. :-)

Shoot, every once in awhile a local company named WATCO will fabricate a new dump body. Talk about truly mammoth material handling!

Re:Old vaporware

[DJDuck]

Not a 'patch' as it needs to be continually re-applied. It's more a workaround.

Sim Mars

[jschen]

Interesting stuff. I think I would have enjoyed Sim Mars.

Re:Sim Mars

[Sqweegee]

There was Mars scenario available Sim Earth released for the SNES, PC, Amiga, and a few others. There was also a Venus, Ice planet, and Desert planet... The scenarios involved terraforming the planet to support evolving life.

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/SimEarth:_The_Living_Planet

Re:Sim Mars

[Sanat]

From the article "Can you imagine some of the expansion pack titles we could've seen?"

I misread that as titties as first and thought "Whaaat?"

I need to get out more.

Re:Sim Mars

[EQ]

You have a 3 digit ./ ID.

You're not supposed to "get out more".

What kind of an example do you want to be setting for us 5 digit types?

Re:Sim Mars

[Sanat]

Don't use me as an example unless you are looking for a bad one.

I've been around Slashdot since "Day 2" and avoided getting an UID until some reason that made it beneficial... way back when.

I did get out today... did a little metal detecting and fixed some steps for a friend of mine. Finally the weather is changing.

I'm glad to see you post here again EQ. I know the juvenile-ness bothers you some, but you have some unique experiences with your work in crypto that the readers would enjoy. And you have the right to talk about it. Welcome back.

How many

[Kelz]

times does C-net need to run the same story per year? It seems whenever they remember something else they come out with a new list (like once per month).

Re:How many

[T-Bone-T]

I found it more interesting that the number of comments varies from page to page. Some of the comments disappear when you go to the next page and spring back to life on the page after.

Re:How many

[Kamokazi]

Whenever they need a few thousand extra page impressions by spanning a half-page article over eleven pages.

Oh, come on. GMail?

[ZorbaTHut]

Why do people say GMail is vaporware?

I mean, you can use it. You've been able to use it for years. It's on the web, it's easily accessible, it wouldn't surprise me if it's used by millions of people.

Google's calling it "beta" because they don't think it's worthy of a non-beta release. That's [i]all it means[/i]. Google has higher standards for "non-beta" than other companies do, apparently - they're still adding major features and I suspect that's at least partially related to its beta status.

Why does it mean so much to have it not be called beta anymore? Because, I mean, if that one word really causes you so much mental anguish, I bet I could provide a Greasemonkey script to get rid of it.

Google's decided it's not finished. I'm willing to defer to their judgement. Honestly, it's a nice change from "feature-complete 1.0 software" that crashes every five minutes.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[lilomar]

Thank you for saving me from having to type out that post.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[ZorbaTHut]

Speaking of Greasemonkey, I really need to come up with a Greasemonkey script to convert VBcode into HTML on Slashdot. I swear I make that mistake in every third comment.

Sheesh.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[LMacG]

Or you could use the Preview button.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[ZorbaTHut]

Honestly, I've done that and still managed to miss it before. I don't really expect to make mistakes with markup that simple (and, due to spending most of my posting time on a VB board, I expect to be able to edit my posts also - something I truly wish Slashdot had.)

An unfortunate set of cross-site reflexes. So it goes.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[hey!]

Personally, I don't think it has anything to do with standards, higher or otherwise.

I think it has been in "beta" so long, that if it were ever announced to be "released", people would expect something new and whizzy, which completely destroys the point of distinguishing "beta software" from "release software". However its questionable whether these categories have much value any longer.

The reason the beta doesn't come off is that there isn't any such thing as released software anymore. In the early days, the beta label warned people that gmail might not work with their browser; these that warning is as close to superfluous as it will ever be. What has changed since the "beta/release" terminology was introduced into the common language is the discrediting of the waterfall project management model -- not that people are any better at project management than they used to be. Using agile methods, you're continually do small releases, so you never have a final "released" product.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[Rogerborg]

Gmail is still beta? How would I know?

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[teleriddler]

Actually I think the main reason Google calls most of it non feature complete software "beta" is for legal terms. Our company does the same thing. If we call it beta, we have legal language that severely limits what a client can demand and receive from both product performance and compensation should anything perform incorrectly. Chalk this one up to the lawyers. --TR

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[Hillgiant]

I do the reverse. I set the commenting style to HTML on all the VB forums I frequent.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[realthing02]

The Waterfall method has it's uses, and certainly hasn't been "discredited." If what you were going for was the advent of agile techniques make certain things faster/more effective, than I wholeheartedly agree. But just a point of reference, I'm pretty sure i missed out on a job opportunity because the interviewer kept saying that "everything should be done using Agile methods," and I disagreed. He kept pushing, and I saw he wasn't a big fan of me. I then asked him how many iterations it would take to design a building or an airplane, before he got it right? How would you test that?

Certain things do not have changing requirements, which is the key use for agile methods. If you know exactly what your system needs to do (I know, rare)- than a strict adherence to some Agile methods could prolong the project.

That said, gmail is perfectly suited for agile methods, hence the perpetual beta.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[doti]

Too bad the imap support is shitty.

Otherwise, it's a good email tool, and certainly the best webmail out there.

And yes, it is used by millions.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[chromatic]

I then asked him how many iterations it would take to design a building or an airplane, before he got it right? How would you test that?

Do you know the difference between a building, an airplane, and a piece of software?

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[photomonkey]

Meh.

I'd bet dollars to cents that some lawyer(s) somewhere is telling Google to continue calling it 'Beta' simply so that if something breaks, and causes some amount of damage to the end user, it's even more clear-cut that Google has not created any expectation of warranty or guaranty.

Heck, I've seen a lot of other software sans 'beta' markings that should not have even passed muster as alpha software.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[realthing02]

Do you know what the word everything means? I mean, I'm pretty sure airplanes, buildings, and software are under that umbrella.

Re:Oh, come on. GMail?

[chromatic]

So that's a no then? The difference between an airplane, a building, and the software is that the design of the software is the finished product.

Not so much vapourware...

[Toreo asesino]

I don't know about anyone else, but when I were but a young'un, I remember being told by various techie fortune tellers that when I grew up GAMES would be completely virtual reality based complete with headsets/central-nervous-system connections, and nothing like the cutting edge 8-bit bitmaps bouncing across the screen with cheesy 2 tone music of the day.

I still remember the huge disappointment at trying my first VR system in some crappy French arcade years after that...instead of bouncing bitmaps, it was no more than maybe 20 untextured polygons being rendered before my eyes on a headset big & heavy enough to crush a small mammal. Yeah ok, so I could look around, but at a glorious 15 FPS I got sick after about 2 minutes and probably would've come face-to-face with my breakfast for the 2nd time that day had the credit not have run out due to the fact I didn't know what the I was supposed to be doing (bitch slapping the "evil plain-red polygon" with the mechanical wand one presumed).

My question really is; has has gaming tech progressed any further in this area? Rare is the occasion I see anything remotely VR anywhere now, (apparently, even the French have given up on it - a sure sign it's a shit idea), and yet still I would love to fulfil my childhood dreams of running care-free through a futuristic sci-fi world with a Big Fuckoff LaserGun (tm)....in a virtual reality, not in my bedroom.

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[Anonymous Coward]

First consumer VR applications will be pr0n-based, mark my words. If you want to be in the first wave of home VR-users, keep your eye on the pr0n scene. Games and other mainstream applications will follow.

That's why I'm keeping my eye on it. You know, I'm just hanging out waitng for some "interesting technological developments."

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[2nd Post!]

The Nintendo Wii is the closest thing I can think of to VR, today, that is commercial in nature.

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[psychodelicacy]

Reminds me of the "feelies" in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - a new kind of movie experience in which you feel what's happening as well as seeing and hearing it, which is mainly used for pornography. Any tech that appeals to the senses in a more intense way than previously possible is probably going to be used for porn. Unless it appeals to the sense of smell, of course - Eau de Sweaty Muscle Man, anyone?

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[argStyopa]

"has has gaming tech progressed any further in this area? "

Depends by what you specifically mean by 'progressed'.

Has gaming graphically improved? Hell yes. Look at the current tech demos for Age of Conan - particularly someone swimming in the water - and you'll be impressed. And this isn't some specifically rendered scene in a single player game. This is an open-activity world meant for hundreds and thousands of simultaneous players.

Has gaming developed substantially better tools in terms of multiple people interacting on the same virtual world? Hell yes. See my point about AoC above. The interactivity of multi user persistent worlds is miles beyond what you mention. (Note - I should mention Second Life. For some reason they get a lot of attention here and the pop-press, but they are at least a *decade* behind what I would say is the minimum standard today for Massively Online Persistent worlds. Don't use what you see there as any sort of benchmark for what is "today".)

Have VR tools advanced substantially? Again, yes. Recently I've seen 360-degree displays in extraordinarily high resolution, along with motion sensor technology that's amazingly precise, even some kludged from the Wii controller. What's really impressed me is that I saw a 'cage' motion simulator that was essentially a hollow-ball of a cage that you could stand in, so that you could MOVE in a VR world, from walking to running, and your avatar would move.

Has the synthesis of these things advanced? Less than you might think. I think the gaming industry has seen that there really isn't much of a market for VR systems. I could speculate on a number of reasons:
- most consumers seem to be perfectly happy with the current experience*
- most consumers couldn't currently afford even the top-end 2d-computer-vr gear, much less 3d stuff
- unsolved human equilibrium problems. If every sense is telling you you're riding in a spinning teacup, but your inner-ear disagrees, that's a recipe for motionsickness. Not many find that an entertaining time.

* because ultimately, it's about suspension of disbelief. Let's say I could have the ultimate home-VR experience - a headset that displays in perfect 3d, with perfect 3d sound, photorealistic resolution, I don't get dizzy, etc. I'm still just sitting there. There's still going to be a requirement for a user-interface that lets me move & function as if I was there. Will the increase in visual/audio realism (only) be worth the increase in price, while VR is hobbled by the need for some sort of human input device? Personally, I don't think so.

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[nacturation]

I don't know about anyone else, but when I were but a young'un, I remember being told by various techie fortune tellers that when I grew up GAMES would be completely virtual reality based complete with headsets/central-nervous-system connections... Well that's the problem right there. You simply haven't grown up, and now all of gaming technology has been held back by it. Thanks a lot.

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[merreborn]

remember being told by various techie fortune tellers that when I grew up GAMES would be completely virtual reality based complete with headsets... My question really is; has has gaming tech progressed any further in this area?

Doing anything interesting requires big, expensive hardware. Having lived in Sillicon Valley for years, I've had the chance to see a couple of groups show off their VR technology.

In the mid/late nineties, Sun had a room they called "Portal" in one of their main buildings. It had projector screens on 3 walls, on which 3d imagery was displayed. The user stood in the middle of the room, with a railing between you and the screens. IIRC, they used the shuttered-glasses 3d technique, which involves wearing glasses that very rapidly alternate between allowing your right and left eye to see; the projected images displayed alternating frames in sync with the shutters.

Moving closer to each of the 3 railings produced "movement" in that direction, which had different effects depending on which demo app was running at the time.

There was probably hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment involved.

NASA AMES has open houses periodically, during which they always like to show off their world-class flight-sim hardware. One of their simulators was recently featured on Mythbusters. They run in the millions of dollars.

The technology is there. It's just too expensive (and big) for home use. Especially the motion tracking and force feedback hardware. The closest thing we have is Wii Sports (which is a huge leap toward in home VR, quite frankly).

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[smackt4rd]

Alot of the newer arcade games are sort of VR'y. It's not completely immersive like your dream machine, but it's kinda headed that way. (that police 911 game comes to mind, where you actually have to crouch and duck to dodge bullets, or like someone else mentioned, the Wii is sort of VR)

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing anything VR where your body isn't physically moving will make anyone sick after a while. That's why it never took off.

Until we have brain implants or something that can disconnect your body from your brain (a la The Matrix) then VR will never be realized anywhere other than mechanical sims (flight sim, robots, etc).

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[baby_robots]

I think current VR systems tend to be a bit expensive, but they are around. Disney Quest has quite a few VR attractions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisneyQuest/

Also, Carnegie Mellon has a course where you build VR games. http://www.etc.cmu.edu/bvw/

I imagine the expense of these systems will rapidly decrease as pattern recognition software gets better and the hardware gets cheaper allowing for more widespread adoption. (for example see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/)

Re:Not so much vapourware...

[Samizdata]

Surprised no one mentioned CaveQuake...

nothingforyoutoseehere

[davidwr]

move along

Holographic Storage

[Moosechees]

The same holographic storage mentioned in the article was featured on Slashdot two years ago.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/28/2226239

Re:Holographic Storage

[brunascle]

it's actually available, apparently, but i'm pretty sure it's ridiculously priced. it's certainly not targeted at the average consumer.

i've been anxiously waiting for news of a consumer-level product for 2 years now. alas, still not in sight.

Political Vapourware

[davejenkins]

Politicians make their living off of the same vapourware every election-- and for some inexplicable reason, the masses keep buying into it. How about a short list?
1. Balanced Budget
2. Peace in our time
3. Raise education standards
4. Economic security

At first glance, this may seem off-topic, but I would submit that vapourware is inevitable to anyone who is asking for money/power and promises to give you something later. Companies release press 'early' (vapourware) in the hopes of bouying their stock price or raising VC money; politicians promise the moon to get campaign contributions (VC money). Same thing.

Re:Political Vapourware

[cbart387]

Companies release press 'early' (vapourware) in the hopes of bouying their stock price or raising VC money; politicians promise the moon to get campaign contributions (VC money). I agree totally with your post. However, I would like to add one other thing. I believe companies also announce products so that the consumer doesn't buy their competitor product (and get inundated) even before it's released. For example, Levono 'leaked' their X300. Yeah, you're telling me that wasn't calculated.

Re:Political Vapourware

[jellomizer]

Well...
2 is in Conflect with 4
1 is in Conflect with 3

Peace and Economic Security cant both happen because there are a limited amount of resources available. If you have World Peace we will have a problem with Econimic security because all resources will be shared to a point where we will not have enough to properly survive (not very secure) Of if we obtain Economic Security We will need to make sure that we the Haves are stronger then the Have Nots who will rebel against us.

The biggest cry that keeps our budget from being balance is "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" and Education is the biggest yeller of that (mostly because their job is to think about the future of children) But the more they have the more they will want. There is always more you can do to improve education, but you need to find trade offs, in order to keep the budget balance.

Re:Political Vapourware

[srussell]

Politicians make their living off of the same vapourware every election-- and for some inexplicable reason, the masses keep buying into it. How about a short list?

Well, some of these things have been achieved. They just aren't perpetual.

1. Balanced Budget

Done, during the Clinton administration. Subsequently undone.

2. Peace in our time

We've had presidencies during which the US hasn't been in any open conflict with any other country. But this really depends on what you mean by "peace." Are we at peace if, somewhere in the country, some guy is beating his wife? Are we at peace if we're not at war with anybody, but somebody, somewhere, is? Are we at peace if we have an embargo on some other country?

3. Raise education standards

You could argue that the US is more educated than it ever has been. More people have advanced degrees than ever have, and more poor people have degrees. Public K12 education certainly hasn't been improving overall in a long while, but again, it depends on what standards you're measuring -- what's your definition of education standards?

4. Economic security

The last time that happened was when social security was instituted. I don't even know what this would look like -- everybody gets a guaranteed minimum wage? Everybody is guaranteed a job? The stock market only goes up? What?

--- SER

Re:Political Vapourware

[damn_registrars]

I would say that most, if not all, of the rest of the industrialized world would argue that we could have a better educational system in this country, and still balance our budget. How many countries with better public education than the US have budgets that are as severely out of whack as ours? How many G8 countries have had to continually raise their debt ceilings, and borrow more money every year, throwing their budgets further into the red?

Re:Political Vapourware

[jellomizer]

Yea I kinda needed to streach on that part. But unfortunatly in America we see education tied directly with spending. There are ways to improve education without extra spending, and still teachers get more money for their job and students get better educated. The problem is everyone is pointing to everyone else and not themselfs.

The main problem with education in America is not the other is ourselfs and our culture.
Many parents teach their kids that school isn't important. Or the kid is Smart so he thinks he is so smart that he doesn't need school to suceed, or the kid is Dumb so he is dumb school will not help him. Or the focus on sports, music, other activites or just making sure the kid is popular is more important then school then they will focus on that more, because they get the more reward shortterm for the effort given.

Even though I don't have any kids of school age I could do more to help as well. I could mentor my time and show the kids how this crazy seemingly useless stuff you learn at school is useful in real life.

The media could do a better job as well. Portaiting smart well educated kids as more of a positive role model vs. the bumbling nerd. And if they are smart they should be realistilcly smart Good grades willingess to learn... Not I can make a spaceship from the junk in my bacement smart.

Schools need to stop treating schools like baby sitters or jails. They need to aproach all these problems as an oppurtunity to educate. Not a reason to get the kid kicked out. (Like the kid who got suspened for buying candy (Normal Candy Skittles I think) from an other child). They could have use this as an opertunity to explain to the child why it was against the rules, If they can't do that then they should rethink why it is against the rules and shouldn't punish the student for it.

Re:Political Vapourware

[spaceyhackerlady]

1. Balanced Budget

Been there, done that.

...laura, proudly Canadian

Re:Political Vapourware

[CrimsonAvenger]

1. Balanced Budget

Done, during the Clinton administration. Subsequently undone.

Remember the "Social Security Lockbox"? Neat phrase meant to suggest something that didn't exist in the real world. When Clinton balanced the budget (for one year, the recession that started at the end of 2000 guaranteed it wouldn't stay balanced no matter what), he did it by using the contents of that hypothetical Social Security Lockbox. In other words, the budget was "balanced", but we had to increase our national debt just as if it hadn't been balanced....

This is not meant to suggest that any other President or Congress has done better, mind you. But I can't buy "the budget is balanced" when the national debt increases.

Re:Political Vapourware

[AK Marc]

If you have a boarder in your house, and you balance your budget for your wife and children, is your household budget balanced? Everything you have direct control over balances. But the boarder could have an unbalanced budget. So, do you define your household to exclude such separate programs, or do you include them in your household budget? It's not just a separate line item, but a whole separate entity.

When Clinton balanced the budget (for one year, the recession that started at the end of 2000 guaranteed it wouldn't stay balanced no matter what),

The only guarantee that it wouldn't stay balanced was the election of a Republican. It may have been harder, but it certainly wouldn't have been impossible for someone else to have balanced the budget in 2001. However, the debt has increased greatly under the Republicans, and the Republicans fight every attempt to balance it, like forcing the shutdown of the government under Clinton because he told them he wouldn't sign an unbalanced budget, so they submitted an unbalanced one to call his bluff, but it wasn't a bluff. It takes closing the government to get congress to submit a balanced (or nearly balanced) budget. And it takes a Democratic president with a Republican Congress. A Republican president and Republican Congress will give us what we had under Regan, lots of debt and no fiscal responsibility. I can't imagine a Democratic president and Congress would be any better.

Re:Political Vapourware

[Nefarious Wheel]

I would like to add one other thing. I believe companies also announce products so that the consumer doesn't buy their competitor product (and get inundated) even before it's released. For example, Levono 'leaked' their X300. Yeah, you're telling me that wasn't calculated.

This goes way, way back. IBM, ever the hardball player in the mainframe arena, announced the System 360 and OS/360 before it was even on the drawing boards, as a same-week response to CDC's announcement of one of the Cray-designed CDC 6000 series computers. IBM didn't deliver until well over a year after announcement. Practices such as these helped precipitate the decade of litigation known as "IBM vs the BUNCH (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC and Honeywell)" although it was the BUNCH who went after IBM for monopolistic practices.

The endless chain of litigation (which made the SCO/Unix litigation look like a lawn mower dispute) was finally finished when two tapes that contained the index to whole warehouses of source documents (punch cards, mostly) were "accidentally" scrubbed.

Hmm... Lenovo. Wasn't that an IBM spinoff?

Re:Political Vapourware

[uniquename72]

You could argue that the US is more educated than it ever has been. More people have advanced degrees than ever have, and more poor people have degrees. Making it stupidly easy to get a degree doesn't make those with degrees educated. I could sell "College Diplomas" out of a vending machine -- doesn't mean people who purchase one are educated.

The real problem today is that we've set the bar ridiculously low. Basic reading, writing, and arithmetic are all that's needed for someone to be called 'educated.' Calculus, which the average 12-year-old is perfectly capable of doing, is generally not studied until college, if even then. Science in the U.S. is literally a joke, laughed at by other nations. Hell, half our population can't even speak correct English!

Re:Political Vapourware

[damn_registrars]

Politicians make their living off of the same vapourware every election-- and for some inexplicable reason, the masses keep buying into it. How about a short list?

1. Balanced Budget
2. Peace in our time

Actually, I would say that at least one candidate doesn't seem to care about those two. He's been supporting the current economic agenda, and has said we may be in Iraq for another 100 years.

For better or for worse (I'd say the latter), the list of political vaporware seems to have been reduced this year.

Re:Political Vapourware

[colinrichardday]

3. Raise education standards

It's easy to raise education standards. The hard part is to improve education.

Re:Political Vapourware

[Your.Master]

The average 12-year-old is capable of performing Calculus in the same sense that the average 7 year old can analyze "great works" of literature. Yes, a 12-year-old can copy the equation, add the little number above and to the right of the "x" as a big number in brackets in front of the "x", and subtract 1 from that little number. This level of skill is substantially less useful than basic arithmetic for the vast majority of situations. The average 12 year old cannot analytically solve an arbitrary known-to-be-solvable non-linear partial differential equation. I say that with confidence; I'm fairly certain that any counterexample you can think of is demonstrably not an average 12 year old (or an average [younger age]).

I dislike your use of literally there, it makes me think that your English education was, figuratively speaking, a joke. Call me an anal-retentive prescriptivist if you must, but I don't think I'm very much in the minority on that one.

I was not educated in the US and have not seen education in the US directly, so I cannot fairly comment on much of the rest (although I freely admit that seriously considering ID in a science classroom is a bit of a joke).

You cannot sell accredited diplomas out of a vending machine :), and I'm pretty sure that's what we're measuring. Maybe you can argue that his data does not support *good* college education, but I've not seen any data that actually suggests that good college education in the US is declining.

Re:Political Vapourware

[CrimsonAvenger]

However, the debt has increased greatly under the Republicans, and the Republicans fight every attempt to balance it, like forcing the shutdown of the government under Clinton because he told them he wouldn't sign an unbalanced budget, so they submitted an unbalanced one to call his bluff, but it wasn't a bluff.

As I remember, the government shutdown was NOT because the Republican Congress submitted an unbalanced budget, but because they submited a budget that didn't increase spending as much as Clinton would like. Hardly a picture of fiscal responsibility.

A Republican president and Republican Congress will give us what we had under Regan, lots of debt and no fiscal responsibility.

When Reagan was President, we had a Republican President and a Democratic Congress, by the way. Not straight Republican. Sorry.

If you have a boarder in your house, and you balance your budget for your wife and children, is your household budget balanced? Everything you have direct control over balances. But the boarder could have an unbalanced budget. So, do you define your household to exclude such separate programs, or do you include them in your household budget? It's not just a separate line item, but a whole separate entity.

If I have a boarder, I don't use HIS money to balance my budget. I don't say "well, I spent $10000 more than we made, but Rick, who lives above the garage, spent $10000 LESS than he made, so my budget is balanced. This is what Clinton did. And what every President who has made a pretense of TRYING to balance the budget since FDR has done.

The only guarantee that it wouldn't stay balanced was the election of a Republican. It may have been harder, but it certainly wouldn't have been impossible for someone else to have balanced the budget in 2001.

No. We had a recession then. Tax revenues declined. The budget has items that MUST increase yearly (those cost of living raises you may have heard about), and Congress is not in the habit of raising taxes during a recession (since that just makes the recession worse). So almost by definition, the budget balancing would have ended with the next budget, no matter what else happened in the meantime.

Again, kudos to Clinton for succeeding, but his success was short-lived, and could not have been other than shortlived. The only way the budget will ever be balanced is if the Government is forced to reduce spending to less than tax revenues permanently. And that won't happen.

I can't imagine a Democratic president and Congress would be any better.

We have only to look at the deficits in Clinton's first two years to see what would happen in that case, since the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress then.

Useful clue, by the way - the House of Representatives is the only body that can originate budget bills. And before 1994, the House had been Democratic for longer than my lifetime. And I just turned 50.

Re:Political Vapourware

[Plugh]

The reason those kinds of political promises are vaporware is that both the politicians, and the voting masses, think that *government* can solve problems.

It can't. Never has, never will.

Re:Political Vapourware

[ampmouse]

Politicians make their living off of the same vapourware every election-- and for some inexplicable reason, the masses keep buying into it. How about a short list?

1. Balanced Budget
2. Peace in our time

Actually, I would say that at least one candidate doesn't seem to care about those two. He's been supporting the current economic agenda, and has said we may be in Iraq for another 100 years.

For better or for worse (I'd say the latter), the list of political vaporware seems to have been reduced this year. Strange that you can only find one candidate, because I can find at least two more. While those other candidates may be for ending the war in Iraq, one of them thinks its time for Iran, and the other just has not decided where to bomb next. And with all these new spending programs they are all talking about, there will be no way to balance the budget.

Is it just me, or are their a bunch of clones running for president this year? *Buys one way ticket to New Zealand*

Next Photo

[tsa]

Do they really think I'm going to press the 'Next Photo' button 11 times?

Re:Next Photo

[LMacG]

I think we can fill in step 3 . . .

1. Set up vaguely geek-related article on multiple pages,

2. Make sure each page is full of pay-per-impression ads,

3. Post to Slashdot,

4. PROFIT!!!

Re:Next Photo

[uberjoe]

You forgot '???'

Vaporware as a strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

A large company can use vaporware as a strategy to fight smaller companies. Back in the 1980s, my brother's company was well on the way to producing a killer (for the day) graphics application. Lotus (iirc) announced that they were releasing the same thing in a couple of months. My brother's company quit working on the project because they didn't feel they could compete with Lotus. The Lotus app did not materialize in a month. It didn't materialize in a year even. My brother's product would have been first to market if it had been continued.

It's a good strategy. Tell a lie to scare everyone else off. Take your sweet time producing an app into a competition free market.

Obligatory tag missing...

[jgrind]

Surely a "dukenukemforever" tag is required for this post.

Without even looking...

[Junior J. Junior III]

Here's my list of most significant vapor promises that never got delivered:

1) Nuclear Fusion power plants
2) Room-temperature Superconductor
3) Human exploration/Colonization of interplanetary space
4) Faster-than-light space travel
5) Humanlike AI
6) World Peace

If we could get any of these delivered, it'd be really nice. But I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Without even looking...

[dorix]

Since when has FTL space travel ever been "promised"?

Re:Without even looking...

[jollyreaper]

1) Nuclear Fusion power plants
2) Room-temperature Superconductor
3) Human exploration/Colonization of interplanetary space
4) Faster-than-light space travel
5) Humanlike AI
6) World Peace 7) Hot, smart, horny bisexual women totally turned on by the brainpower of nerd-studs. *sigh* Heinlein, how could you have steered us so wrong?

Re:Without even looking...

[Animats]

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is clearly the most significant vapor promise that never got delivered. The marketing organization has been promoting it for almost two thousand years and they still haven't delivered.

Re:Without even looking...

[Spleen]

I always laugh when I hear this. As a child I was taught that Jesus was born (1st coming) and then was crucified. He was then resurrected (2nd coming) before ascending into heaven.

Does only a resurrection count as a "coming"? Seems to me they are either promoting something that has already happened, or should be promoting the 3rd coming.

Re:Without even looking...

[fyoder]

The marketing organization has been promoting it for almost two thousand years and they still haven't delivered.

And yet, people are still buying. That's some marketing organization.

Re:Without even looking...

[Asic Eng]

It only qualifies as vaporware if someone says "I have it" but can not actually deliver it. Just because something is technologically or politically far away doesn't mean it's vaporware. In medieval times someone could have made a list like this:

1) machines allowing humans to fly
2) power transferred over copper wires
3) instantaneous voice communication to other continents
4) machines which can add, subtract and multiply
5) settling new continents
6) peace in Europe

Re:Without even looking...

[perlith]

Please ask marketing to update their printed literature on this. Thanks.

Re:Without even looking...

[Moraelin]

Pfft, if you think that's bad vapourware: The Jews had been waiting for their messiah long before Jesus was even born. As far as I know, they still haven't gotten it. But presumably it's gonna happen real soon now, as soon as God irons out the last couple of bugs ;)

(And no, Jesus wasn't it, since he didn't actually do what the Jews' messiah was supposed to do. Then again, I guess it wouldn't be the first time when the actual released product doesn't even resemble what the marketing hype told you to expect;)

Re:Without even looking...

[Doctor Faustus]

7) Hot, smart, horny bisexual women totally turned on by the brainpower of nerd-studs.
I know a few (and married one). Unfortunately, they tend to also be on the crazy side.

Re:Without even looking...

[Pope]

Hot, smart, horny, bisexual, red-headed women totally turned on by the brainpower of nerd-studs.

Now *that* is Heinlein!

Re:Without even looking...

[diablovision]

Actually, it would be the third coming. Haven't you ever read the book of Mormon? /sarc

Re:Without even looking...

[jollyreaper]

7) Hot, smart, horny bisexual women totally turned on by the brainpower of nerd-studs.
I know a few (and married one). Unfortunately, they tend to also be on the crazy side. It sounds like a sterotypical joke but I find that to be very true. I have broad tastes when it comes to physical attractiveness (pun not intended) but there's very few who fit the mentally attractive category -- that's the mix of personality, humor, and intelligence and different people have different preferences. Of the ones who fall into this category, many are in committed relationships, their partners see them as keepers. A surprising fraction who share these traits are also gay, thus winnowing out the pool further. And that crazy you said is exactly right, and not cute whimsical crazy, it's the "where the fuck did that come from?" crazy that leads to emotional catastrofucks you never saw coming. Also, on the intelligence factor -- the higher the average IQ in the room, the more drama seems to erupt. Bright people often have trouble with cooperation, suppressing ego for the good of the group. I've noticed that the GOP tends to get their members marching in lockstep that looks like a mighty phalanx going into battle while the Dems can't even agree on the day to show up. Intelligence can be self-defeating. Put this in a relationship with strong-willed people and it becomes a Greek tragedy.

Re:Without even looking...

[meringuoid]

I always laugh when I hear this. As a child I was taught that Jesus was born (1st coming) and then was crucified. He was then resurrected (2nd coming) before ascending into heaven.

If I remember rightly how it goes (it's been a while since I've seen the inside of a church): He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We're still waiting. The best place to meet him is at this great restaurant Zaphod Beeblebrox told me about...

Re:PENIS PENIS HAHAHAHAHAHA PENIS LOL ROFLCOPTER

[MrShaggy]

Too bad I dont have mod points. Thats funnny!

whats sad...

[EdelFactor19]

The optimus maximus, a once proud co-leader (duke nukem forever) had to be removed from this list for violating the rules of the club and actually getting released.

how about ...

[damn_registrars]

• Universally accessible health care
• Space exploration
• Lower pollution

Most were doomed from the start.

[jellomizer]

The only one I really liked in the list was the Digital Film, I wish I came up with it... But most of them are doomed to failure. Such as the printed Paper Storage...
Most Printers can do 1200 DPI Printing so lets assume that we can print crip color dots (perhaps with solid ink printers) on a 8.5x11 paper you han hold 134,640,000 dots per page. So except for storing it in binary we can store the data in Base 5. Lets assume At best they can mix a few colors to make each dot one Byte. Still that is only 128.4 megs per Page. If you print double sided you can double that... But lets look at the Cost $0.08 per page and assuming this best case senio it will cost $0.60 per Gig of storage. You can Get external drives that cost less then $0.50 per Gig. And it will allow Faster Reading and Writting and changes wont require a full Recycle bin of Paper.

Does IT Qualify?

[BigAssRat]

The Segway seems to fall into this category if you ask me. Never really delivered on its promise.

Q-Trax = Monty Python Cheese Shop

[szyzyg]

I feel some small grain of sympathy for Q-Trax having to deal with the record labels, but there are quite a few free, legal services that let you listen to any music you want, on demand, they all managed to get licenses figured out. It's one things to launch with limited content, it's another to arrange a million dollar launch party before the deals have been signed.
At the time I equated the Q-Trax experience to Mr Wensleydale's cheese emporium in the famous monty python sketch.
http://snm.imeem.com/blogs/2008/01/30/oF1HiZ3f/monty_python_vs_qtrax
(slashdot won't let me post it since it ends up with too few characters per line....)

paper storage

[Digi-John]

No one has ever thought to use paper as a storage medium. Nope.
DISCLAIMER: Yeah, I know the technology is totally different. Sue me.

Obligatory....

[adamziegler]

DN4 - forever lost to vapor...

paranoia

[dj245]

Call me paranoid, but calling most of their products "beta" seems to me like an sneaky way of avoiding any sort of liability whatsoever for any problems that might arise. I'm not saying Google *should* be liable, but I think these beta tags have more to do with legal reasons than technical ones.

Re:paranoia

[somersault]

You're paranoid about being paranoid, but you're also probably correct.

Re:paranoia

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you.

Re:paranoia

[English French Man]

I hardly seems the problem if the software is reliable.

I find google a lot better than some other companies that I won't name here (like IBM for instance) in term of quality of service for their mail software. And their software is at least usable.

If I have a problem, I don't complain... My bad for not choosing a better email software provider

glaze3d

[pak9rabid]

Whenever I hear of vaporware tech, I can't help but think of this.

E-Film...

[tlhIngan]

Funny, but that wasn't a vaporware product... the actual device shown may have been, but before dSLRs, people could acquire "digital backs" for their SLR cameras to turn them into digital cameras. So the technology isn't new, innovative, or even vaporware. While everyone was raving over "point and shoot" digital cameras, the serious guys wanted something for their SLRs.

It was just that it easily cost around $10,000, so not many could afford them.

Then dSLRs came onto the market and that ended that reign. And these days, they're well within the reach of amateur photographers, costing not much more than a high-end point and shoot...

Re:E-Film...

[Archon-X]

Actually, digital backs are massive business, but typically in the medium/large formats.
A hasselblad digital back for your MF will set you back a cool $25k, starting price.

Re:E-Film...

[ckaminski]

But those were, AFAIK, only available for medium and large format cameras, like Mamiya and Hasselblad, not standard 35mm cameras like your Pentax or Minolta.

The article makes fun of the resolution and image carrying capacity of these devices, but fails to reflect on the fact that the removable storage of the time was measured in megabytes and the dSLR it champions, the D1, was a 2.7 MP camera.

The death of "silicon film" was the variety of different sizes they'd have to make the thing to work with all cameras, and probably the transport mechanism, getting that to work right.

You've never heard of T.D.A.H.O.D.S.N.?

[Lucas123]

And here I thought three-dimensional atomic holographic optical data storage nanotechnology was practically a house-hold term. I'm shocked to hear it's vapourwear, shocked.

Re:You've never heard of T.D.A.H.O.D.S.N.?

[Fishbulb]

Speaking of which, that's why I clicked on the link and read the article.....except the article mentions nothing about T.D.A.H.O.D.S.N.

Harumph!

Re:You've never heard of T.D.A.H.O.D.S.N.?

[Neflyte_Zero]

Ranks up there with Gigabit Optical Archival Technology Second Edition. That thing, according to the spec pictures I saw looked like a real pain in the ass. Sure looked like it could hold a lot though.

Re:Small point...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I go to www.gmail.com it still says "beta" right under the logo in the upper left corner

Scratch-proof coating

[NotPeteMcCabe]

I remember reading a year or so ago -- it was probably two or three by now -- that some company had a scratch-proof coating that was going to revolutionize everything. The company gave the person who wrote the article a CD coated with the stuff and and he rubbed it with a pad of steel wool for several minutes, which produced no damage.

Where the hell is this? Supposedly it was just a couple of months away. My Netflix account would be a lot more valuable if I never got a scratched disc again. And if my iPhone had this over the screen that would be pretty dandy.

Re:Scratch-proof coating

[Clueless Moron]

On BluRay disks, perhaps? The scratchproof coating was a key development for BluRay; originally they were to be delivered in cartridges to protect the surface.

Re:Scratch-proof coating

[ShadowOfMe]

I heard they scratched the project.

Re:Scratch-proof coating

[nacturation]

You can do that now with sapphire-coated surfaces. A former boss of mine had a watch with a sapphire coating and he boasted that it couldn't be scratched. I asked him if I could try and he said "do your best". So I took a sharp serrated steak knife to it and tried to scratch it but no matter how hard I pressed it would just effortlessly slide across the surface causing no damage at all.

Perhaps that's not an example of inexpensive scratch-proof coatings -- and I'm not sure if it can easily be done on any surface via chemical vapor deposition -- but for some price it can be had today.

Re:Scratch-proof coating

[Doctor Faustus]

I took a sharp serrated steak knife to it and tried to scratch it but no matter how hard I pressed...
Wow, that sounds like a good way to lose a finger.

Re:Scratch-proof coating

[Skuldo]

Specsavers offers some similar material on glasses. You can rub it with wire wool in store, no scratches.

Re:Scratch-proof coating

[nacturation]

I took a sharp serrated steak knife to it and tried to scratch it but no matter how hard I pressed...
Wow, that sounds like a good way to lose a finger. That's how the Yakuza used to initiate new members:

Yakuza: "Ah, recruit-san, to join us you must scratch the surface of this watch using that knife."
Recruit: "Hai!"
[A heroic effort ensues, but recruit only manages to cut off their own finger]
Yakuza: "By going all the way, you've passed our test of inner strength... welcome to the Yakuza."

Now, they just skip the watch.

Darkfall.

[Grimbleton]

That shit is never coming out, admit it.

Better yet...

[halivar]

dukenukemneverever

Vaporware?

[atlastiamborn]

Pah! Just you wait until they release Vaporware 2.0, that shit will blow your socks off.

Re:Vaporware?

[ascendant]

That stuff's already out!
It's where they don't even release a statement saying when they'll release the product.
You missed all of those?

Hmm...

[kabocox]

Hearing the term vaporware brings to mind duke nuke forever, flying cars, rocket packs, death rays, immortality drugs, cures for any disease, fusion, zero point/vacuum energy, quantum/DNA computers, electric cars, and AI.

Those fields and a few others I just ignore all PR news until there are products that I can buy from Walmart or Target.

Paper Storage...

[Kaukomieli]

This paper-storage-thingy ain't _that_ stupid. Optical and magnetic storage-devices tend to degrade quickly, while paper can last for a very long time. The main problem I would see is if he uses colours for coding since it will change over time.

This could bascially be used as a compression algorithm for books...

Coleco ADAM anyone?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

How could they leave out the Coleco ADAM, the spin-off "expansion" to the Colecovision, the most popular post-Atari 2600 console to that time?

And, unlike most of these, the ADAM actually saw the light of day in production and sales. It's the software for it that was vaporware. Legion were the games promised and touted in newsletters, but very few actually saw the light of day.

You could even buy the CP/M operating system for it, which included a text editor and an assembler, should you wish to do programming in assembly language. Which was your only choice other than the built-in Basic.

But there were at least several dozen games promised (Tunnels and Trolls being one of the most promising) that never appeared, though I think the Dragon's Lair and the Smurf ADAM upgraded version both were released.

Re:Coleco ADAM anyone?

[Guysmiley777]

I had an ADAM! And other than playing Colecovision cartridges there wasn't much available. Short of transcribing game programs from BASIC magazine (no small feat for a 10 year old.)

Google Beta

[Dr.Altaica]

I thought 'Google Beta' was there official of the company.

Remember that Google logo page that showed all the diffrant versons of their logo?

How could you ever forget

[VincenzoRomano]

How could you ever forget about AtomChip's Nanomicronics?

Gold in the rainbow?

[DrVomact]

I think C net might be missing the point of the "rainbow storage" idea...or maybe the inventor doesn't see the possibilities himself. If you haven't read the article, this is a technology that encodes data and stores it as colored geometric shapes on paper, or other printable medium. I don't think that "rainbow" storage is going to replace more conventional data storage...but I think there might be a real use for this: archival data storage. By "archival" I mean, "can still be read 1,000 years from today".

We're all familiar with the problems of any long-term computer data storage technology: mainly, the problem is progress. If you want to keep records of something for a long time, you have to consider that your storage media may simply become unreadable over time—not because of degradation in the media itself (you're going to store it in a very safe, temperature and humidity-controlled cave, right?)—but because devices that can read the media have all been junked and replaced by something far better. That's why museums and universities are always on the lookout for old media that needs to be converted to modern technology before it's too late.

But paper is forever. Well, nearly—and, of course, I'm talking about really good, acid-free paper kept stored under reasonably controlled conditions. Or you might use something even more durable than sheets of paper. You'd also have to think carefully about the inks. Assuming that the inventor can really get some decent compression rates, then perhaps he's onto something. If the "rainbow tech" allows you to store significantly more Megs of data on a sheet of A4 than you could by using a simpler technology (micro-braille?), then I'd say it would be worth a look. You'd have to be careful to store a copy of the encoding algorithm (presumably in plain, printed text) along with each cave-full of archive, of course...

I see the bad moon arising...

[ayjay29]

I see trouble on the way...

They have a DukeNukemForever trailer??? Damn...

If (and I say IF) they ever release it it could be the beginning of the end of life as we know it:

The Alien Overlords will take over the world
Soviet Russia take over the Alien Overlords
There will be a beowulf cluster of beowulf clusters

These are troubled times, troubled times indeed

On the plus side we will be able to see Natalie Portman with the hot grits...

BibTeX 1.0?

[Dreaming in R'lyeh]

It's been at 0.99 since 1988, and is clearly promised in the manual.

Was the Tucker automobile vaporware? I think not.

[earlymon]

Rather than reading more CNet crap - which I've done to save you all a lot of trouble - and wading through 11 pages of ads, here's an interesting list, coincidentally including many of those listed by CNet, courtesy of Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vaporware

Furthermore, given Wiki's definition and write-up of what constitutes vaporware - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware - I'd like to suggest that most of us think of as vaporware doesn't really match CNet's or Wikipedia's broad definition of it.

I don't think it is at fair, accurate or reasonable to take a prototyped product, whose prototype is on time, meets its design goals, is reasonable for the target it tried to achieve, but failed due to external market forces and call that vaporware. The best example in my mind is the digital film to convert ordinary 35 mm cameras to digital.

Was the Tucker automobile vaporware? I think not. Based on that logic being correct, I think a lot of what CNet is saying is being pulled from a nether region.

But then, I'm on record for hating CNet - so today, I'm choosing to be polite about it.

Even though they fucking suck and serve a brane-dead demographic.

That's a feature not a bug :)

[Anonymous Coward]

A nice/kind[1], hot, smart, horny woman has got to be crazy to marry me.

[1] The idea is that during the "not so good times", she'll still tend to be kind to me.

What about...

[Soiden]

...flying cars? That's something humanity's been expecting for decades.

there is a lot of vaporware in the brewing...

[kesuki]

there are dozens of companies trying to come up with the 'next big storage device' and some of them have even conned the heads of major hard drive manufacturers, with their technobabble and a few patently stupid patents.

i mean come on just because a guy can get a couple patents through the patent office you think he's going to deliver 10 petabytes? (i refer to my present signature) the main site has about 12 pages that basically use the same paragraphs in 12 different orders, stressing his 'patents' that expire in 2020, and how he's going to get patents in 2020 that go to 2040... the former head of seagate quoted as saying "I don't understand all of Michael's technology but I know this is the way to go for the storage industry."

If you don't understand all the technology, then you might as well just go to Vegas, because there you can bet it all and let it ride... technobabble companies just take the money and run, sometimes to foreign countries... reminds me of stiff I've seen in the past, people claiming multi megabit speeds over normal copper lines, raking in tons of cash from the foolhardy on a 'simple' demonstration device using cat 5 cable to 'simulate' their supposed speeds over a span of like 20 feet instead of 20 miles (that they claimed) oh and then there was that guy talking about 'solar memory' LOL a video clip of a REGULAR MIRROR and he fleeced so many people.... vaporware is often borderline fraud, although games often get shut down because they took too long to develop.

I'll wait to watch it...

[acroyear]

...on my Windows Media Player for Linux.

Vista still is vaporware

[r0b!n]

Vista as originally announced, is not the Vista that was released. So many features were pulled.

Yay!

[fat_mike]

Another one page story that has to take up eleven so the website gets ad revenue!

That's one of the most annoying things. Here's a vaporware prediction for you:

IN 2008, CNET PLANS WILL NOT HAVE 10,000 MONKEYS WITH 10,000 TYPEWRITERS PRODUCING THEIR STORIES!

Re:Was the Tucker automobile vaporware? I think no

[westlake]

Was the Tucker automobile vaporware?

In 1948 there was a huge pent-up demand for a genuine post-war American automobile.
But only 50 Tuckers were produced. There were engineering problems. There were serious questions asked about Tucker's fund raising schemes. Tucker Automobiles

Re:PENIS PENIS HAHAHAHAHAHA PENIS LOL ROFLCOPTER

[Anonymous Coward]

Vaporpenis --- AKA Hillary "Rodhave" Clinton

Re:Was the Tucker automobile vaporware? I think no

[earlymon]

Many thanks for the great link.

I for one can't sort out the truth of it - and I admit to being heavily biased over the movie about Tucker.

Then again, we could say _almost_ the same about the DeLorean - but as it turned out, he was set up - that much is very clear from the fossil record.

Again, I wouldn't call these cars vaporware. That the original (eventually, only) few Tuckers had engineering problems - no intention of rudeness or disrespect, I just don't know what else to say, but "so?" There were engineering problems in pick-one-version of Windows, there were questions about funding for Apple (lately) but because of high production these are not vaporware.

My point is that if you engineer an honest product and then suffer from some production problem - funding, market forces, etc - I don't think it should be labeled vaporware.

Wish I'd had a better example - but an example is an example - Tucker produced 50 - for all I know, some of the listed products produced just one - but they weren't snake oil.

Yes, I'd say if a prototype were produced to garner attention or produce FUD - either (or similar causes for being made) resulting in no go to market - that's vaporware. If just a mock-up with no production intention, that's vaporware. If focusing on a feature that's not for real, vaporware.

But it's my contention that CNet is calling some things vaporware that shouldn't be labeled such and is just being typically sensationalistic.

I'd suggest that by their reasoning, they could just have easily called CP/M-86, MP/M-86 or even BeOS vaporware.

Is it just me?

Re:Was the Tucker automobile vaporware? I think no

[westlake]

I for one can't sort out the truth of it - and I admit to being heavily biased over the movie about Tucker.

The first postwar cars were production runs of cars designed for the prewar market.

There was the expensive of reconversion, shortages of labor and material. I am not sure Tucker ever really solved the problem of finding - and fitting - the right engine and transmission.

The helicopter engine used in the Smithsonian's Torpedo can't have been a mass market solution in 1948.

What, no BeBox?

[hoover]

Too bad the BeBox didn't at least get a honourable mention... damn, that machine had me excited for a while.

Columbus and Gallileo, etc. are Laughing in Graves

[fedrive]

These so-called future seers should hook up with palm readers, card reader, etc. maybe
they can tell us the next president of the United States also.

The article and reference source are total garbage.

http://www.dailytech.com/Worlds+Data+to+Reach+18+Zettabytes+by+2011/article11055.htm

If we continue to use the present technology we will need a nuclear power plant in every
city around the world.

Nanotechnology is the way to go, but the feather heads citing the article and writing the
reference article are obviouly not men of science.