Future Tech that didn't make it?

[8bit]

There's always the latest thing that comes along, and seems like a good idea at the time. Stuff like rotary engines and Betamax players. Obviously not everyone rushed out and bought a 10 grand Apple Lisa. What else can you think of?

Mazda RX4

MotorWeek Porsche 944 Vs RX7

Betamax tape

[2000cs]

Palm and Blackberry (both crushed by Apple and Samsung smartphones). I suppose Nokia goes on the heap too, along with Motorola?

[Mason Hatcher]

:CueCat...

[Soul_Glo]

Minidisc... killed off by the ability to record CD's/DVD's which is almost gone as it it's being taken over by lossless MP3/WMA/AAC (high resolution etc).

[King Rudi]

Samsungs folding smart phone
BMW's N54 oil retention capability
The E90 HPFP

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Soul_Glo

Minidisc... killed off by the ability to record CD's/DVD's which is almost gone as it it's being taken over by lossless MP3/WMA/AAC (high resolution etc).

Actually, it was a bit more complex than that. Philips put out a competing format at the same time as Sony's Minidisc called digital compact cassette. Many in the audio press wished Sony and Philips buried their grudges and combined the two formats. Everyone agreed the Minidisc was a great medium, but they hated the lossy/compressed format Sony used for Minidisc. However, Philips had the better audio compression but used the archaic magnetic format in the hopes that this provided a logical path for cassette tape users.

If Sony and Philips had collaborated as they did when they created the compact disc, this combined medium would have been pretty successful.

I'll bring up other formats which got killed such as SACD and DVD-A. Another situation where Sony had to do their own thing and diluted the effort to build a high definition audio market.

And the RIAA killed DAT with their lobbying of Congress to impose an automatic royalty on each blank DAT tape sold due to the possibility of it being involved in piracy along with the idiotic SCMS copy protection system forced upon all DAT recorders.

[8bit]

A golden one for BMW was the Eta concept of a low rpm, high economy inline 6. Hard to imagine but back in the early '80s after the second fuel crisis the luxury brands didn't want to pay a gas guzzler tax. So Cadillac and Mercedes went for diesel. BMW was preparing a diesel, which Lincoln bought, but took the route of an economy focused gasoline engine instead. In came the 1982 528e and the e30 got one too eventually.

By the mid '80s the price of gas was in free fall, so goodbye Eta and hello Motorsport!The rest is history, lol.

BMW's Eta concept

[M_Six]

Zip Drives. At my last job we had still shrinked-wrapped boxes of them and a bunch of external drives.

[dinonz]

Originally Posted by 8bit

Obviously not everyone rushed out and bought a 10 grand Apple Lisa.

The Lisa became the Macintosh, which became the Mac as we know it today.

[F30lolz]

Neo Geo. For those that remember, it was a $649.95 gaming console ($200 games) that came out 1991-1992 IIRC. Grew up in a ‘mini’ baller neighborhood in Queens back in the day and nobody in my neighborhood or school had one

[MPOWER5266]

HD DVD, the porn industry went with Blu-ray and HD DVD died off. Also Blu-rays, everyone streams everything instead.

[rwheels]

This. Would have loved if this guy would have succeeded; until the thought of idiots flying them.

[smrtypants44]

Ipods.... smartphones pretty much killed the portable audio players...

[King Rudi]

Originally Posted by MPOWER5266

HD DVD, the porn industry went with Blu-ray and HD DVD died off. Also Blu-rays, everyone streams everything instead.

Same thing happened to VHS and Betamax. The porn industry went with VHS, this is why Betamax failed.

[JasonDot]

Great topic! Curved TVs and 3DTVs come to mind.
Is it too early to add the BMW Connected app? ...just joking!

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Zip Drives. At my last job we had still shrinked-wrapped boxes of them and a bunch of external drives.

And the bigger brother the Jazz drives.

But even before those were the Bernoulli drives.

[smyles]

[wcr3d]

It is just evolution.

[m4dbimmer]

Laserdisks

Landlines

Fax machines (if you still use one, I'm sorry that whatever company/system is still forcing you to)

webTV

Divx

Game consoles (Jaguar/Sega/Atari/Philips CDI/Nokia come to mind)

The Condor airplane

Folding phones

Microsoft phones

Facebook home, and facebook.. just wait..

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

And the bigger brother the Jazz drives.

But even before those were the Bernoulli drives.

...and Tarbell Tape:

[vreihen16]

Sadly, some would argue that the BMW i3 should be on this list:




.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by m4dbimmer

Laserdisks

Landlines

Fax machines (if you still use one, I'm sorry that whatever company/system is still forcing you to)

webTV

Divx

Game consoles (Jaguar/Sega/Atari/Philips CDI/Nokia come to mind)

The Condor airplane

Folding phones

Microsoft phones

Facebook home, and facebook.. just wait..

I still have landline service and also use a fax machine when possible. When I had a major power outage, my equipment was still up but my Comcast service took a dump. I keep my landline around for a few reasons. One is for the reliability. Two is for another number to use when filling out applications and such which inevitably will get telemarketers. Three, the landline is the primary means of my alarm system communicating to the monitoring station. Four, I share the landline service between my two homes via my own VoIP system.

As far as faxing, I use faxing as a better means of keeping communications with various entities more secure.