Right Place, Wrong Time: 9 Technologies Born Before Their Time

Posted 09/29/2011 at 3:17pm | by Brad Chacos

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QR Codes

The face of suck. Image credit: garrickvanburen.com

What, two articles that talk about CueCat in the span of a month? Yep. That’s how crappy it was. Those QR codes popping up in ads, newspapers, magazines and soda cans owe a big debt of gratitude to that creepy little plastic white Cat. Not because it paved the way for QR codes; oh no, that technology was around before CueCat, even if it didn’t become popular until recently. QR codes owe CueCat some thanks because CueCat showed everyone how not to do scannable bar codes.

Start with the hardware necessary to scan the codes; whereas anybody with a smartphone can now kickstart a QR code, accessing CueCat codes could only be done with that goofy cat-shaped device manufactured by Digital Convergence. The company did a decent job of getting the units out to the public, but unfortunately, they did an indecent job of collecting personal data from users; they kept track of consumers by utilizing the unique serial identifier tied to each device and the log-in data needed to use it.

When tech-savvy CueCat users began blocking the data CueCat transmitted to Digital Convergence, the company responded by pointing to its user agreement, which stated the CueCat readers were simply on loan rather than the property of the end user – giving users no right to “declaw” the CueCat. People just stopped using them, instead. Smooth move, Digital Convergence. It didn’t help that the CueCats themselves felt cheap and were a pain in the neck to use.

The Mouse

Image credit: finestdaily.com

The mouse? Who the heck can picture computing without that old standby? Aside, um, from keyboard shortcut junkies and Apple users hooked on the whole Gestures thing, of course. But believe it or not, the mouse wasn’t accepted as an integral part of the PC experience when it was created way back in the mid sixties.

Douglas Engelbart and Bill English of the Stanford Research Institute created the first mouse, and it was literally a lumbering monstrosity compared to today’s sleek laser-sporting peripherals; it was built out of a large brick of wood, with two perpendicular metal gear wheels inside and a small button in its upper-right corner. Why the upper-right corner? Who knows? Maybe Engelbart had a strong pinky.

The duo dubbed the device “mouse” thanks to the tail-like cord that snaked out of the bottom of the peripheral to attach to a computer. Telefunken introduced a version that used a ball, rather than perpendicular gears, shortly thereafter and shipped a mouse with every computer it sold, but the mouse didn’t hit the mainstream until 1984. That’s when the Apple Macintosh hit the mainstream and thrust the Lisa Mouse into the limelight. Even then, there were doubters: at the time, John Dvorak said "There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”

On-Demand Television: Two Spectacular Failures

As download speeds get faster and cable bills skyrocket, more and more people are turning to streaming services like Hulu Plus, Netflix and Apple TV to fill their video viewing needs. Each of the services has had its fair share of hiccups, to be sure – what the hell are you doing these days, Netflix? – but they’ve all seen relatively decent success, unlike some of their interactive TV forefathers.

Interactive Television

First up is Qube, a service that Warner Communications rolled out in the Columbus, Ohio area in 1977. Qube had a lot of things going for it; it offered a ton of channels for the time period, with 30 in total; those 30 channels were split between 10 normal channels, 10 on-demand pay-per-view movies and events – a cable first – and 10 channels that showed off the platforms interactive abilities, two of which would go on to become MTV and Nickelodeon. Watchers could, for example, answer surveys and polls to provide instantaneous feedback while watching a presidential debate.

Qube was incredibly well received and soon expanded to several other cities, but it was also incredibly expensive to implement and run. High operating costs caused Qube’s demise and almost took Warner Cable down with it. Check out this link for a full history of the interesting experiment.

Image credit: IPriori.com

Streaming Video

Then came Akimbo. Introduced in 2004, Akimbo offered the same basic service that Hulu does today: streaming, on-demand television. It required a $230 set-top box and a broadband connection; those were the first two strikes against it in the world of 2004. The third strike and most deadly strike was a lack of engaging content. Netflix and Hulu still struggle with content providers worried about devaluing their content; in 2004, the traditional music industry was in the midst of being demolished by the digital music revolution and television producers were worried Akimbo would bring the same troubles to their neck of the woods.

Image credit: informitv.com

While Akimbo managed to snag a deal with Turner Broadcasting to bring CNN and Cartoon Network shows to the service, and it also offered a selection of educational content by A&E, the History Channel and National Geographic, most of the shows available were foreign or only of interest to ultra-niche groups, such as yachters or billiards fans. Users also had to pony up a $10/month subscription fee, and “premium content” cost extra while being simultaneously chocked full of ads. As innovative as streaming video was at the time, those limitations and price concerns kept Akimbo from ever really taking off. The company shut down the service in 2007 and closed its doors in 2008.

Netbooks

Thanks to tablets, netbooks aren’t selling at quite the same “Get ‘em while they’re hot” pace of a few years back. While the little laptop’s time in the limelight may have been brief, it came on the shoulders of a line of spectacular failures.

The rumored yet never released Palm Foleo. Image source: Engadget

Remember that failed Newton tablet that we mentioned earlier? The Apple eMate 300 netbook ran the same Apple Newton OS. As if that wasn’t a bad enough omen, the eMate 300 was the portable computer of choice for Batgirl in the craptastic “Batman & Robin” movie. Apple pulled the plug on the entire Newton line in 1997, when the eMate 300 was barely a year old. On the other hand, Psion’s diminutive netBook is remarkable not because it failed so hard in the early 2000s – which it did – but because it started slinging cease-and-desist letters to manufacturers, suppliers and even enthusiast websites that used the term “netbook” when it became popular in 2008. The US Patent Office put a halt to that pretty quickly, a surprising move considering the USPTO’s track record.

Let’s end this shindig on an ironic note: one of the most spectacular netbook failures never even came to market and serves as a highlight of the now-defunct Palm’s stunningly poor business sense. Palm announced the Palm Foleo, a Linux-based subnotebook computer, in May 2007. Palm envisioned it as being the perfect companion device for smartphones, and like the Omnibook 300, it was supposed to sport an instant boot feature. Unfortunately, Palm was already in the first revolutions of its death-spiral down the toilet drain, and the Foleo was canceled a scant three months after its announcement as part of the company’s decision to focus on smartphones and PDAs. The irony? The netbook craze took off just after the death of the Foleo. If the PC had made it to market, it would’ve been the first netbook available during the feeding frenzy – and possibly made Palm oodles of money. Oh, well.

The End…?

So, what did we bungle? What did we forget? Which little-used gadget is going to be the next technology to hit it big? Let us know in the comments!