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

Google Mail

[omeomi]

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

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

[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."

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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...

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).

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.

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.

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

[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

Next Photo

[tsa]

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Vaporware?

[atlastiamborn]

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

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;)