The 50 Worst Fails In Tech History

Image via Complex Original

Launch date: May 27, 2009

Fatal flaw(s): Not enough users, abundance of features 

When Google introduced its next-gen messaging service to an overly enthusiastic I/O event crowd in '09, everyone thought the next great communication platform had arrived. Part instant messenger, part Twitter, part e-mail, Google Wave promised to deliver a new way of collaborating and staying in touch with friends and co-workers. Too bad no one else thought so. A year later, Google pulled the plug on the service that would let you see what your friend was typing in real-time, saying it "has not seen the user adoption we would have liked." 

Launch date: 2002

Fatal flaw(s): Clunky design, slow hardware

Never mind the fact that Xybernaut had to enlist the help of Hitachi to actually release its wearable computer, and the fact that it went bankrupt. Lets focus on the fact that when Xybernaut introduced this product at the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show, some people actually thought it was a great idea. Look at the thing! It looks like a broke Halloween costume. Not only that, it ran on Windows CE and cost a cool $1,500. For that money you could have bought a real computer and kept your pride. 

Launch date: April 2, 2010

Fatal flaw(s): Hard to find friends, no web-based portal

A social-network centered around your love of music, powered by Apple and its iTunes service sounds awesome. Too bad it wasn't. Out the gate Ping lacked ways for people to easily get in touch with their friends who were also using the service, and didn't have a website you could log into outside of iTunes. The good news here is, Apple can, and more than likely will improve the service, so expect this to not make any more fail lists in the future. 

Launch date: 2004

Fatal flaw(s): No MP3, WAV, or WMA support, expensive 

To be fair, the HD1 had a lot going for it when it was released. That's part of the reason why it was such a fail of a product. The sleek, aluminum body was a pleasure to hold, and it was one of the smallest, if not the smallest 20GB music player available at the time. However, it's weak spot came in the form of Sony's ATRAC3 format. In order to play any music you had to convert your MP3s into its proprietary format using its shitty SonicStage Jukebox software. Then there was the price. Oh, and this little thing called the iPod. 

Launch date: October 29, 2009

Fatal flaw(s): Features gave no incentive for users to upgrade, bulky

This pick is more of a personal one for us. We love the DSi. We think it's a great portable gaming console, replete with two screens that provide an experience unlike any other platform on the market. The DSi XL? Eh, not so much. The idea of having two larger screens sounds cool in concept, but in reality it didn't provide a vastly different experience. Satoru Iwata argued that the DSi XL gave users a new method of playing the Gameboy by becoming a  "portable system that can be enjoyed with people surrounding the gamer." We're sorry, we thought that's what the Wii was for.

Launch date: April 19, 2011

Fatal flaw(s): Lack of popular native BlackBerry apps like e-mail, address book, and BBM

The BlackBerry PlayBook, as we said in our review, is a well-designed piece of hardware with an operating system that plucks the good features from a number of sources to make a hodgepodge of an OS that brings some inventiveness to an arena of copycats. That said, it wasn't enough. Most BlackBerry users stick with their BB because of its strong e-mail capabilities and BlackBerry Messenger—neither of which are available on the PlayBook. Yep, not even e-mail. RIM says a future update will bring both features to the tablet, but dropping the PlayBook without those key features in a field of serious contenders was a fail.

Launch date: 2000

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, underpowered 

Steve Jobs loves cubed-shaped computers. When he started NeXT Computer Systems after being ousted from Apple, its main machine was the NeXTcube—a high-end workstation shaped, like, well, a cube. Fast-forward seven years later, Steve was back at Apple, and he was again trying to pitch the world on a high-end cube-shaped workstation. This time around, the Jonathan Ives-designed piece was absolutely gorgeous. An 8"x8"x8" cube suspended in acrylic; from afar it seemed to be floating. However, it's hefty $1,600 price tag brought consumers back to the ground mighty quickly. After only a year on the market, Apple pulled the plug. 

Launch date: January 30, 2007

Fatal flaw(s): Slow, buggy, very fragmented, high hardware standards

Go 'head, laugh away. You all knew it was coming. But Vista wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Yeah, it was buggy and didn't run properly on a number of machines that were running Windows XP. But those were growing pains, right? And so what if people couldn't decide which version to buy because Microsoft decided to ship eight different versions of Vista? More choice is good for the consumer, isn't it? No and no. Windows Vista was noteworthy for introducing a new version of Windows that veered away from Microsoft's old operating systems. There was a new user interface called Aero that looked eerily similar to Apple's Aqua, and new built-in software like a DVD Maker and an universal search feature. However, the OS took Microsoft five steps forwards and about 10 back. There's a reason why there are more XP users than Vista users in the world. Fail. 

Launch date: 2004

Fatal flaw(s): Slow, Windows XP, heavy, bad keyboard

Real talk: before the tablet movement, we thought the next generation of portable computers were going to look like the OQO Model 1. At the time, its specs resembled those of the current tablets: 1 GHz processor, 1 GB ram, 20 GB harddrive, touchscreen interface. Only thing was, all that wasn't enough to run the full-fledged Windows XP system cramed under the hood. We'd like to see what OQO could do with the Android OS.

Launch date: 2003

Fatal flaw(s): Slow, lack of features

It's not Viewsonic's fault its Smart Display sucked. That honor goes to Microsoft, for its the one that came up with the idea and standard. The idea was pretty novel. Bill Gates thought consumers should be able to access and use their computer without having to be in front of their computer. His solution was to build a touchscreen monitor that would mirror your desktop and let you do all that you would on it, from the comfort of your couch. The only problem? Well, there were many. For one, due to licensing issues, a Smart Display could only be locked into one Windows computer. You couldn't stream media from it, or do much of anything else really, besides browse websites. Then there was the $1,000+ price tag that many people rightfully shied away from. After less than a year, Microsoft cancelled the project. 

Launch date: September 18, 1996

Fatal flaw(s): Weak web browsing experience

WebTV was ahead of its time. Launched when most people still didn't really know what to make of the Internet or how to use it, WebTV attempted to bridge the gap by allowing people to surf the web through the device they used the most: their televisions. And for a while it worked. Companies like Sony, Philips, and Samsung building set-top boxes for the $20/month service. It was doing so well, Microsoft took notice and bought the company, eventually turning into MSN TV. The thing that really killed WebTV was time. As people became more familiar with the Web and computers became more mainstream and easier to use, paying for an Internet service that only worked on your TV seemed a bit silly. 

Fun fact: WebTV, after being purchased by Microsoft, worked with Sega to put WebTV in its Dreamcast console. Running over Microsoft's Windows CE OS, it was the first console to sport an Internet connection and browser, and lead the way for Microsoft's development of its Xbox Live service. 

Launch date: 2006

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, bad battery life, no keyboard

Like the OQO Model 1, the Samsung Q1 pre-dated the tablet movement. It featured a touchscreen, massive hard drive space, and decent specs. But it ran Windows XP and cost as much as a laptop. Combine that with its less-than-stellar battery life and you had a product that was good to look at in the store. 

Launch date: September 1, 1996

Fatal flaw(s): Lack of video game titles, expensive 

Before Apple was dominating the handheld gaming market with its iOS devices, it tried its hand at building a full-fledged console. Released in '96, the Apple-designed, Bandai-built Pippin was meant to be a gaming console and a network computer. It accomplished neither of those goals. With a market ruled by Sega and Nintendo, it was hard for Apple to get an in without strong software titles and a price that dwarfed the Genesis and Nintendo gaming systems. Out the 100,000 models built, rumor has it only 42,000 were sold. Fail. But, hey, at least we know where Nintedo got the idea for its N64 controller. 

Launch date: 1997

Fatal flaw(s): Intrusive, privacy risk

Before Facebook's big privacy scare, Comet Systems' Comet Cursor made front-page news with its sneaky-ass ways. Essentially software than can customize your computer's mouse cursor, Comet Systems partnered with a number of big web sites like Warner Bros., AT&T, and Energizer, designing custom cursors that would activate when customers browsed over to their sites. It was crazy annoying and drained your system's processing power, but that wasn't the bad part. That came when people discovered that the software was assigning every user an ID number and sending information on the sites they were visiting and the other software they had installed on their computers back to its headquarters. After an investigation, the Comet Cursor, which was downloaded over 200 million times thanks to loopholes in Internet Explorer, was ruled to be spyware. 

Launch date: March, 1984

 Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, not compatible with other IBM PCs, horrible keyboard 

After only two years in the personal computer market, IBM was able to steal away 26% of all sales. But that's what IBM was about. It would see a viable industry that fit well inside its wheel house and pounce. When Big Blue saw all the money that was being made by selling low-priced computers to schools and consumers, it decided that that was market it needed to be in. So after a year or so of development and a $40 million ad push, it released the PCjr. Marketed as a computer that was compatible with IBMs more serious business machines, but more affordable, it turned out to be neither. It was more expensive than its competition and couldn't run a great number of software titles that IBM's other computers could. At the time, with the Apple Macintosh hitting stores, Time magazine called the PCjr "one of the biggest flops in the history of computing." They were right. 

Launch date: 1982

 Fatal flaw(s): Poor image quality

What y'all know about disc film? Probably nothing. And that's all right. Developed by Kodak to be a simple-to-use consumer film, disc film looked promising until you actually looked at your pictures. Images came out small, grainy, and undefined. Everything you don't want from your camera. The crazy thing is, despite no cameras being made for over 10 years, Kodak didn't stop making disco film until 1999. 

Launch date: July 9, 2007

Fatal flaw(s): Production issues, stock issues, lack of support 

The Neo 1973 didn't so much fail as get killed. Launched in 2007, Neo 1973—named after the first year of mobile phone usage—was made using open source hardware and software. However, production issues and stock shortages made it damn near impossible to find one. Rumor has it FIC, the company behind the project, has another model in the works. 

Launch date: 2001 (announced)

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, heavy, cumbersome, eye-strain-inducing

In theory, the Olympus Eye-Trek FMD-700 sounded like a great idea. Throw on a pair of shades and you can replicate the experience of watching a 52-inch television set. In reality, however, it was an exercise in patience. Users reported that after 30 minutes of viewing, their eyes would begin to strain, causing them to take a break. Also, you would need to position yourself very close to your video source of choice. Reviewers claimed the sound left a lot to be desired and would-be early adopters balked at the $1,200 price. It's no wonder Olympus hit the kill switch before bringing this to market. 

Launch date: December 3, 1991

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, poor game selection

Here we have yet another multimedia system built to compete with the video game kings. Compact Disc Interactive was a standard developed by Philips and Sony in the '90s that would play games and run other interactive software like educational tools. You can already guess what happened with this gadget. After its release, Phlips and Sony tried to make a strong push in the video game market but saw no sucess. The lack of poor game choices as well as its $700 price pushed consumers away. After four models, including one made for software development that sported a floppy disk drive (of all things), Philips discontinued the line in 1998. 

Launch date: January 25, 2008

Fatal flaw(s): Odd design

We're big fans of the Linux-based gOS operating system that powers the CloudBook, so it was a real disappointment when we actually played around with it. Overall, it's not horrible. It's a passable system with passable specs, but it's design struck us, and many others, as, well, odd. Not only does it look kind of like that One Child Per Laptop device—that's whatever—it's trackpad is in the wierdest position we've ever seen. It's located to the right of the screen. Imagine that. Billed as a netbook, we couldn't see how using it on the go would be easy or cool. Being different for different's sake isn't the move. 

Launch date: March, 2004

Fatal flaw(s): Everything

Here's another pair of glasses that promise to make you believe you're watching a big-screen TV while sitting in your studio apartment. At least this one came with a DVD player. 

Launch date: September 20, 1989

Fatal flaw(s): Heavy, expensive, poor battery life

Apple's first crack at building a portable computer had it basically modifying a Macintosh SE and stuffing a ton of expensive, state-of-the-art tech inside to maximize its battery life. It looked great on paper with SRAM, a black and white active-matrix LCD screen, a floppy disk drive, and support for SCSI Disk Mode. But in real life, it was a clunker. It weighed a back-breaking 16 pounds, was uncomfortable to type on for prolonged periods of time, and had horrible battery life. It was a portable as Ron Artest is sane. 

Launch date: October 4, 2009

Fatal flaw(s): Nothing particularly fatal, just not special enough

When Apple introduced the iPhone it touted it as the best iPod ever made with the best phone ever made. When Garmin, for whatever reason, decided to enter the smartphone game, it touted its Nuvifone as the best map phone on the market. The only problem was: at that time, almost every phone had access to map apps. The iPhone's Google Maps app being a shining example. With nothing to peddle besides geo-location features and the ability to use it as a full-fledged navigation device, Garmin realized it was out of its league and discontinued the line in 2010. 

Launch date: March, 1995

Fatal flaw(s): Lack of adoption

Microsoft's BOB may be one of the most popular tech fails of all time. Designed to be an easier-to-use desktop for new computer users, it wound up being more confusing than Microsoft's Windows interface. After a lack of interest, Microsoft cut the cord. But not before taking some of the characters used in the "living room" setting, like Clippy the paper clip, and throwing them into other software titles.

Launch date: August 14, 1995

Fatal flaw(s): Poor design, poor graphics

Hopefully future gadget designers will realize that people aren't yet ready to enjoy a world fully contained within a headset. Nintendo's Virtual Boy was designed by Gunpei Yokoi, the legendary engineer that designed the Gameboy. According to Game Over magazine, Yokoi never intended the Virtual Boy to be released in the form that it was, but Nintendo pushed ahead anyway. That cost the company dearly. The reviews came back bashing the aesthetics of the machine, along with the graphics. Nintendo dropped the price many times but still saw no spike in interest. Nintendo discontinued Virtual Boy in 1996 with only 800,000 shipped worldwide. 

Launch date: November 3, 2009

Fatal flaw(s): Unjustifiable purchase 

Peek, a New York-based company started by former Virgin Mobile employees, enjoyed great success in 2008 with the release of its Peek e-mail device. The slim, smartphone-looking messenger allowed users who were smartphone-averse to simply check their e-mail on the go. No more, no less. It was simple, refined, and, according to some people, one the best new gadgets of that year. Looking to expand on its product line-up Peek last year introduced Twitter Peek. A device that—you guessed it—let you use Twitter. We get it. People use Twitter these days as much as they check their e-mail, but does anyone really need a dedicated Twitter device? Really? No, they don't. Especially not when they have to pay $99 for a six-month plan, or $200 for a lifetime plan. 

Launch date: 2004

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, bulky, redundant 

Microsoft had an idea to make everyday household and personal items smarter. Why should your fridge just refrigerate and your watch just tell time, the thinking went. To make that a reality, Microsoft introduced Smart Personal Objects Technology, or SPOT. SPOT would enable any Internet-connected device to reel off information that may be important to you like the weather and stock quotes. The first of these gadget were watches made by Fossil, Tissot, and Swatch. The thought of having your watch tell you what the weather outside is sounds cool until you realize that your phone can already probably do that for you. And like your phone, Microsoft wanted to charge customers a monthly fee of $60 to use the SPOT service. Say it with me: FAIL. 

Launch date: October 17, 2000

Fatal flaw(s): Ahead of its time 

Despite it's short lifespan, the 3Com Ergo Aubrey can rest in peace knowing it paved the way for another cutely designed Internet appliance: the Chumby. Like the Chumby, the Ergo was meant to accomplish simple Internet tasks like browsing the web. Creators Don Fotsch and Ray Winninger envisioned creating an Ergo for every room of the house, with the Aubrey being in the heart of the home: the kitchen. Sales weren't horrible, but after the Internet bubble popped, 3Com discontinued the product. 

Launch date: November, 2007

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, worn by Dog the Bounty Hunter 

Let's forget about the THUMP's $300 sticker price and focus on the fact that Lil Jon and Dog the Bounty Hunter can always been seen with a pair of Oakley's MP3-playing sunglasses. Go on and let that marinate. 

Launch date: 1989

Fatal flaw(s): Slow, lacking features, unstable, poor non-BlackBerry mobile support 

Turn my bomb on. Employers, you want to irritate and piss off your employees on a daily basis? Buy a license for IBM's corporate e-mail and collaboration tool, Lotus Notes. Now in its eight version, Lotus Notes has become one of the most popular e-mail clients in the world with over 145 million licenses sold. We don't know how the hell that happened. Must have been some backroom deals or blackmail involved because up until version 6 it was the most frustrating piece of software we here at Complex had to use on the daily. The search function was horrible, it was slow to boot up, quick to crash, and getting it to work on your iPhone or Android device was harder than getting Delonte West to stop gooning for a day. We've since switched to something much more flexible and easier-to-use, thank Jehova. Turn my bomb off. 

Launch date: October, 1989

Fatal flaw(s): Extremely restricting, rapacious marketing techniques, poor customer service, lack of vision for the future

Oh, AOL. At one point, the company that was spawned from a company called Quantum Link which built online services for Apple and IBM-compatible computers, boasted over 30 million subscribers worldwide. Granted, a large chunk of them may or may not have been using one of the free service discs that seemed to appear in your mail, weekend papers, favorite magazines, or just on your doorstep. AOL Instant Messenger was sick, but that was free. In the '90s it seemed AOL could not and would not lose. Then the Internet became a lot easier for people to access, broadband began spreading through the nation, and the masses discovered that the services AOL was offering wasn't really all that dope. From there the company fell the eff off from its high worth of $240 billion in 2001, plummeting to the point where the staff has been gutted, and the focus changed. It's no longer providing Internet service for web novices, instead it's making a play into the content game. How the mighty have fallen.

Launch date: December 3, 2001

Fatal flaw(s): Low travel range, expensive, low mph

Remember when Segway inventor Dean Kamen said that his Segway Human Transporter was going to replace walking? Or when Steve Jobs said it was going to be "bigger than the PC"? Yeah, none of that happened. Walking is, and will always be, free. The Segway, on the other hand, the two-wheeled self-balancing electrical vehicle, will run you around $5,000. When Kamen, a man that holds over 100 patents and invented the heart stent that kept former Vice President Dick Cheney alive, introduced the Segway the media went nuts hailing it as a revolution in transportation. Since it's launch,  it's been estimated that there have been around 50,000 Segways sold, which isn't too shabby, but a long, long way from becoming a major form of transportation. Thanks to later media representations, when we hear the word Segway, all we can think about is Paul Blartt. 

Launch date: Janurary, 2001 (unveiled); Never launched 

Fatal flaw(s): Too expensive to get to market

It's funny how a technology can be the darling of the consumer electronics press and then completely fall off the face of the planet. So it was with the DataPlay Disc. Unveiled at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show, the mini-est of discs, capable of holding 500 mb of data, won a "Best of Show" award and managed to line up a number of deals with companies to make players and with studios and music companies to distribute content via DataPlay disc. Then it all went bust. Unable to bankroll such a large nationwide launch, DataPlay went bankrupt in 2002. Failure to launch, for real. 

Launch date: September 7, 2005

Fatal flaw(s): Underpowered, difficult to upload songs and operate, limited storage space

Meet the original iPhone. Before Apple set out to design its own handset, it opted to partner with the most popular mobile phone maker in the game (at the time)—Motorola—on the ROKR E1. Basically a re-badged Motorola handset, the ROKR showed Apple that this was not the most ideal way to give customers access to their iTunes library on their phones. Due to firmware restrictions, users couldn't have more than 100 songs uploaded at any given time. Uploading songs proved to be painfully slow, and the newly released iPod Nano gave customers looking for a super-portable iPod, a super-portable iPod. The two companies parted ways and the rest is history. 

Launch date: August 28th, 2000

Fatal flaw(s): Lack of funds

Ahead of its time when released, the Modo looked great on paper: an IDEO-designed device running the software that would go on to power the original iPod, using beeper networks to deliver city-specific news, restaurant reviews, and movie listings. Despite strong advertising in its three launch markets—NYC, L.A., and S.F.—the company was forced to close down when its main investors experienced heavy financial problems and pulled out.     

Launch date: 1987

Fatal flaw(s): Sub-par operating system, 

Considered by many to be Apple's first tablet, the Newton was one of the first personal digital assistants to hit the market. The brainchild and personal interest of then CEO John Sculley, it was ate up about $100 million during the course of its creation. While the Newton Message Pads didn't do well commercially, the eMate, a low-powered laptop running the Newton OS aimed at the education market, managed to move a few units. None of that mattered, however, when Steve Jobs was brought back to the company. He promptly cancelled the program. 

Fun fact: Two Newton developers went on to start Pixo, the company that wound up developing the software that powered the first iPod. 

Launch date: 1999

Fatal flaw(s): Lack of practical applications

Have you ever seen anyone actually use one of these? We didn't think so. We're not sure how they managed pushing over 10 million of them. 

Launch date: June 8, 1998

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive players, low number of available titles, lack of funding 

The Digital Video Disc was an interesting take on the movie rental game. For $4 a user could rent a DIVX disc and watch the movie as many times as they wanted for up to 48 hours. Each DIVX player would have an Internet connection and be able to read a unique code in the disk, letting it know whether or not you were supposed to be playing the movie or not. It was a novel idea, but at the end of the day consumers preferred to watch the DVDs they rented as many times as they wanted without someone monitoring their video player. People are funny that. 

Launch date: June 8, 1998

Fatal flaw(s): Limited storage, not truly portable, poorly designed interface 

If you were a satellite radio junkie and wanted your fix while on the go, the Sirius S50 device built by Samsung was your best best. Unfortunately, best was a relative term. While you could record songs that you "Love" with the push of a button, the S50 only packed in 1 GB of storage. You're probably thinking, "So What? I'll just listen to it live." Nope, sorry. The only way to listen to live music or talk shows on the S50 is by connecting it to a car or home dock. To listen to content on the go, you had to record it. Which brings us back to our original problem of storage. Sirius said the RIAA sabotaged the S50 with its amendments to the Audio Home Recording Act and various lawsuits against Sirius and XM Radio. We don't deny that—those dudes are grimey—but that doesn't make the S50 any less of a failure.  

Launch date: August 7, 2001

Fatal flaw(s): Extremely exploitable 

Internet Explorer has never been the shinning beacon of Internet security, but you know things are bad when the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) tells users to use any other browser besides IE 6 if they want their computers to remain free of malware. Why? Because it felt that people who used IE 6 had a greater chance of getting infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger which would steal valuable personal info. Of course, Microsoft fixed the whole that allowed this to happen, but it was too late. The flood gates were open and IE's reputation got washed away.

Launch date: April 18, 2006

Fatal flaw(s): Not enough big-studio support

Next time there's a major media format war, do the smart thing and wait it out. That's what people who bought HD DVD players learned the hard way. Backed heavily by Toshiba, HD DVD was a next-gen optical disc format for storing and recording hi-def video meant to replace the DVD. Despite selling a good number of expensive players and recorders, and over 400 movie titles released in the format, the industry decided to go with the Sony-backed Blu-ray Disc. A larger number of consumer electronics companies including Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, and Sharp, as well as Sony deciding to ship its Playstation 3 video game console with a Blu-ray player, spelled death for the format. 

Launch date: May 30, 2007 (announced); never launched

Fatal flaw(s): Underpowered, poor software, ahead of its time

Before the rise of the netbook, there was the Foleo. Meant to be an easier way for Palm users to write and receive e-mails, edit their calendars, and type memos and notes, the low-powered notebook suffered from harsh criticism from journalists and analysts who said there was no market for a product that was not quite able to fit in pocket, but not full-functioned. Before the Foleo hit stores, Palm CEO Ed Colligan announced that the company would be cancelling the project to focus on its core products. 

Launch date: November 14, 2006

Fatal flaw(s): Too little improvement too late 

When Microsoft released the Zune music player, CEO Steve Ballmer said that he thought his company could overtake the Apple iPod in the portable music player market. Nearly five years later, Apple's iPod claimed 77% of the portable digital music player industry, and Microsoft let it be known that the Zune was being discontinued. Well, sort of. According to reps at the company the newly introduced Windows Phone 7 handsets will be the "new Zunes". 

Granted, the first three generations of Zune weren't up to snuff, but the last one, the Zune HD, was a marvel. It was thin, sleek, made from quality materials, and had an inventive interface, different and in some ways better than the iPods. It's a shame it took Microsoft so long to get it right. 

Launch date: 2004

Fatal flaw(s): Poor interface and design, lack of commercial push 

Can you call something a fail if you never really expected it to succeed? Sure you can. With Roc-A-Fella at the top of its game, and Roc-A-Wear doing equally well, Dame Dash thought it'd be a good idea to expand his empire into other areas. He partnered with a liquor company to market Armadale vodka, for instance. After that he decided to tackle consumer electronics with a company called Roc Digital. Under Roc Digital he would release two MP3 players: a 20 GB Rocbox and a 256 mb Rocbox that would come with exclusive Roc-A-Fella music. Despite the lure of exclusive tracks, the Rocbox failed miserably.  

Launch date: March, 2005

Fatal flaw(s): Expensive, limited distribution

Billed as the most powerful handheld gaming console ever made, the Gizmondo only managed to sell 25,000 units. After its founder and CEO, Carl Freer, became infamous for crashing his Ferrari Enzo and getting locked up, the company managed to push out only eight games before going bankrupted! Satoru Iwata didn't even break a sweat.

Launch date: October 7, 2003

Fatal flaw(s): Poor game selection, poor design

Want to hear something crazy? The Nokia N-Gage sold 3 million units before being discontinued. That's wild considering its $300 price tag when it first hit stores, it's extremely lacking game selection, and confusing button layout. But you have to give Nokia some credit. Before anyone—Apple, Google—saw a future in the convergence of mobile phones and mobile gaming devices, Nokia took that risk and put out an inventive product that just wasn't really that well designed. We'll give Nokia an "E" for effort. 

Launch date: September 14, 2000

Fatal flaw(s): Unreliable

They say you can't polish a turd, but damn did Microsoft try. We don't think we're going overboard when we say Windows ME was, without a hint of doubt, the worst operating system ever produced by Microsoft. It was prone to crashing and more unreliable than a Gucci Mane probationary period. It was a headache to install it, run it, install programs into it, clear it of viruses, and to even turn it off. It was remarkable how bad it was. 

Launch date: 2001

Fatal flaw(s): Ridiculous concept

For those of you that are unfamiliar, the iSmell was a product that sat on your desk and contained a cartridge with 128 "primary odors" that could be mixed together to form a smell that was supposedly emanating from a website you were visiting or e-mail you opened. Yes, this really existed. No, it wasn't a success.  It. Was. A. Product. That. Let. You. Smell. The. Internet. It would be cool for food websites, or for perfume shopping for your girl, but besides those two infrequent Internet queries, we can't see why anyone would need one of these. Well, we can, but eww.

Launch date: 2000

Fatal flaw(s): Security suspicions, lack of a market

Nowadays, QR code scanners are all the rage. Companies and stores promote sales, special offers, and deals when someone uses a smartphone to scan a QR code related to their product. It's big business. Other companies, like eBay, now allow shoppers to scan the barcode of an item to see if it's available from its inventory. We're sure you have scanned more than a couple codes. For that, you can thank CueCat.

Introduced in 2000, CueCat was heralded as a revolutionary technology. It was a little white plastic cat with a built-in infrared sensor that would plug in to your comuter's PS2 port and scan special barcodes (and regular barcodes) which would then take you to a related website. Companies like RadioShack published its catalogs with many CueCat codes strewn about. To get the device in the hands of consumers, Digital Convergence, the company that owned CueCat, mailed 'em out to subscribers of high profile tech magazines like Wired. Everyone thought it was going to be huge. But it wasn't. 

What happened? Well, there was shit ton of bad press related to a discovery that CueCats were sending information on its users back to its servers. Some hackers posted instructions on how to stop it from reporting your info back to Digital Convergence. In response Digital Convergence threatened to sue the hackers. It was a mess. But the real reason it didn't pop off was because it just wasn't that appealing of a product at the time. Unlike your phone, the CueCat was tethered to your desk and in 2000 the interactivity of the Internet wasn't what it is today. The market just wasn't ready; and neither was the product. 

Launch date: May 6, 2010

Fatal flaw(s): Underpowered, misguided marketing, lack of features

Here we are: Number one. The Microsoft KIN. Really? Really. Here's why. KIN, a smartphone platform developed by Microsoft and aimed at younger users who were heavy social network users, wasn't horrible. The KIN One, though very slow, was charming with its pebble shape and solid sliding screen. The software, while lacking needed features like a Maps app, was attractive, inventive at times (the Spot and Loop were cool), and relatively easy to use—although it felt cluttered enough to give claustrophobes the creeps. So why did Microsoft pull the plug after only 48 days? 

The problem laid not so much in the phone itself as in Microsoft's approach to getting the phone into people's hands. Sure, the phone wasn't great—definitely not a threat to the iPhone, BlackBerry, or any Android phone—but a lot of phones aren't great and they're still getting churned out. We think Microsoft flubbed by trying to dictate who was supposed to buy the KIN. It seemed as if the phone's drawbacks were explained away by saying that its target demo didn't need those missing features. If any Microsoft exec took a ride on the MTA Subway they'd see teenagers using the same BlackBerry as Wall Street bankers. Younger people, like their future selves, want cool phones. Not kid phones. 

There are worse products on this list, sure, but in terms of failures, we don't think anything matches the $1 billion development and marketing expenditure and the month-long shelf life of the KIN.