Comments on: Brilliant But Doomed: Technology’s Most Magnificent Failures

By: Brett

Brett — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:09:36 +0000

Various members of my family still own ReplayTV 5000 boxes (after upgrading from 3000’s), and while I no longer use mine due to Replay never putting out an HD capable unit (which I would still buy in a heartbeat today if one were offered), my parents are still using the 3 that they purchased, mostly because there *still* is no decent alternative available to them to be able to record a show on one cable/satellite box and stream it to another box, which they use all the time.

AT&T U-Verse has been touting this ability for about a year now, but still relies on DSL technologies that are distance limited and cannot reach their house with sufficient signal strength from the closest telco switch (despite being in the middle of the city). Anyone know of another service, Satellite or otherwise, which can do this?

Using Time Warner’s DVR is painful in comparison – no 30 second skip, no streaming, and worst of all, no ability to search for a show – none. In that respect TiVo does it best, I’ll grudgingly admit.

By: daemonios

daemonios — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:03:12 +0000

Great story, very entertaining! I just can’t believe the Amiga isn’t listed there. It had everything going for it in the early 90s and it suddenly died out… Ok, it didn’t so much suddenly die out as suffered from prolongued disease and faded out of people’s memory before dying :)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:06:11 +0000

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By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:34:43 +0000

As one of the few remaining Lotus Domino advocates out there, they knew how to build a product, and the knew how to build an AMAZING product. They were offering the SharePoint reality 10 years before anyone even grasped SharePoint. What Lotus/IBM didn’t know was marketing, and the eventual acquisition by IBM was the death knell.

I once read that IBM’s marketing department was so abysmal, if they tried to sell sushi, they’d open restaurants with signs that said “Raw Dead Fish for Sale”. And I believe that. Lotus built some amazing tools – WebSphere is just a revved-up version of the Domino engine, after all – but utterly failed in marketing them.

I’m probably going to end my IT days as a Notes-to-Exchange consultant, but I really miss the promising tools Lotus and IBM’s Lotus division offered.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:32:24 +0000

Atari Lynx

By: The Twelve Most Tarnished Brands in Tech | Technologizer

The Twelve Most Tarnished Brands in Tech | Technologizer — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:12:05 +0000

By: The Twelve Most Tarnished Brand Names in Tech | Technologizer

The Twelve Most Tarnished Brand Names in Tech | Technologizer — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:08:39 +0000

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:55:37 +0000

I only gave up my ReplayTV a few weeks ago, and then only because it was time to switch to HD. Frankly, other than having two internal receivers (the ability to record two streams at once), in almost all respects the DirecTV HD DVR has a slower and less capable interface than my old Replay. The loss of automatic commercial skip is devastating.

When DirecTV bought the Replay assets, they shut down the web site and killed the remote DVR programming service. DirecTV should be complimented for giving us the iPhone app to program their DVR, but it needs the ability to create extended recordings for sports events.

By: DT

DT — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:58:03 +0000

I bought a used ReplayTV 4xxx series four years ago from an auction selling off assets from an IT company that collapsed under massive fraud and embezzlement by the higher-ups (kind of Dot-Com 2.0-ish). Got a lifetime subscription with, and two remotes. Within a short time, I’d upgraded it from a 40GB hard drive to a 250GB one, and hooked it up through component cable for 480p.
While its resolution is no longer cutting-edge, its interface still beats the TiVo hands down, as does its commercial-skip feature. The ability to share shows between ReplayTVs of the same model line either in the home or over the internet was also a groundbreaking feature at the time, as was setting it to record over the web. I’ll continue to use mine until the call of a HD TiVo becomes strong enough and cheap enough someday, or until the TV guide service (bought by DLNA, as I recall) collapses.

By: John Bartell

John Bartell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:32:40 +0000

Anyone remember the Newton. Although it’s success was underwhelming, it positioned Apple for the iPhone and iPod. Without the Newton, perhaps Apple would not be so successful with these products today.