Yaaaaawn

These once-promising technologies have yet to make an impact

DisplayPort

While numerous sources (us included) have pegged DisplayPort as the next logical progression in PC-to-monitor connectivity, the connection has yet to make a dent in the marketplace. It’s a chicken-and-egg story: Monitor manufacturers need to support DisplayPort every bit as much as a vendors, and each seems to be waiting for the other to make a big move.

Blu-ray

OK, the format war is over. Blu-ray is the optical storage king. Still, how many people do you know that have a Blu-ray burner? And of those, how many use it for that purpose regularly? High hardware and media prices, along with perfectly acceptable alternatives, keep this tech firmly planted on the fringe.

10 Gigabit Ethernet

10GbE might make Richie Rich happy, but hopes that the superfast interface standard will trickle down to regular-Joe consumers anytime soon seem fanciful. 10GbE over copper is considered to be the poor man’s fiber, but it’s still a mighty pricey commodity. How pricey? An add-in NIC will set you back more than $1,000, so you can imagine how much a four-port switch will cost you.

UEFI

Universal Extensible Firmware Interface, the ballyhooed replacement for the BIOS, was supposed to have made its big splash this year. Instead, its debut has been more of dribble. Of the mobo vendors, only MSI seems remotely interested in incorporating UEFI—and the boards aren’t even out yet. Most others seem to think it’s just not worth the time and effort when the current BIOS works just fine.

OLED Monitors

For years now we’ve been hearing that organic-light-emitting-diode displays are coming to the desktop, but we’ve given up on waiting. While the screen technology, which requires no backlight to produce its vibrant colors, can be found in small devices, we just don’t see manufacturers ramping up large-scale production at prices that can compete with LCDs anytime soon.

WiMAX

When we first heard of WiMAX back in 2002, we hoped that one day it would empower users with cheap, high-speed wireless broadband. While it’s not quite right to call WiMAX a failure—there are hundreds of networks deployed around the world—it’s not ubiquitous enough to compete with cellular providers. We fear that by the time it is, the tech will be irrelevant.

802.11n

As we near the end of 2008, we’re entering what seems like the second eon of 802.11n development, and unfortunately, there’s no end in sight. The involved parties are deadlocked, so it’s entirely possible that the draft N 2.0 version is the last update we’ll see to 802.11n.