The first Segway.
They’re were quotes that cities would be designed around this invention. Before it was announced it was a balancing standup scooter.
I was legitimately sad it didn’t take off. It was a really cool piece of tech but it got mocked for being nerdy or geeky.
I wonder how much of that was encouraged by oil and car companies.
But… Bikes? How does it improve on bikes, other than being much less safe and more expensive?
Crazy futurists could even propose we build cities around bikes… but that would be insane, obviously. 🚙
I feel that an electric bicycle is better than a segway in every single aspect.
I guess maybe segways could in theory take up less parking space… but I’m not entirely sure. They’re wider, and you need to get out somehow. And they strike me as more awkward than bikes if you should need to lift them.
And don’t provide any exercise.
And are prohibitively expensive. And require electricity.
This is a point for sure, especially since I assume part of their contribution was that they were supposed to replace not only cycling, but also walking.
Then again, I’m increasingly excited about electric bicycles. They’re not for me while I still have good knees and all, but as soon as I can’t go everywhere I like with pedal force… I’m sure as hell getting an electric bike. I guess it’s still more exercise than a Segway though.
I have an electric bike. And if I set it to the highest support setting, I hardly have to pedal at all. I just need to move my feet, as they control how fast it drives.
Electric assisted can help you keep your knees for longer without depriving you of the exercise. Specially if you’re using it for transportation and not just sport.
Idk, more options? It’s a self-balancing thing-a-ma-bob that takes you places when you stand on it. It’s cool and more options are nice. Also, I find it kinda amusing that you think a Segway-compatible city wouldn’t also be bike-compatible. They max out at like, 12mph. You’re not building a sprawling city around Segways like you would with cars.
No need to exercise, much more compact…
3D TV
anything that was shot in 3D was fucking amazing, if you where underwhelmed it was because you watched some flat post production 2D conversion cash grab garbage, which I assume was the case for most people since no one makes 3D televisions anymore (yes, I know projectors are still being made with 3D capabilities)
I bought a 3D TV and liked watching movies on it. Agree that being shot in 3D is better, but anything released in 3D in theaters was good enough.
I don’t know why they died. Too bad. Did streaming kill 3D perhaps?
movies are inherently passive entertainment and the friction of needing glasses for everyone watching was probably enough to kill it for the average user. I think some people got headaches from the effect too and you couldn’t really have some people watching without glasses at the same time.
The glorified pop-up books killed 3D. That’s most of what people saw, so that was their perception of it.
strangely never heard the phrase but it describes them perfectly
I never was able to see in 3D because my eyes can’t bloody focus to produce stereoscopic images. 3D movies were hell for me and there was nothing amazing about the headaches it gave me.
The 3d stuff was great! The NVIDIA glasses were wild!
It’s a shame it died off tbh.
Google glass. Sounded like we’d all be wearing these glasses that we’d not be able to do without, but even looking back that sounds like such a poor idea. I try to not be on my phone as much as I can, I can’t imagine wearing glasses with an interface in my direct vision constantly, especially when a lot of it would be shit like emails, LinkedIn notifications of people I might know, and my siblings sending me 12 Instagram posts in a row.
Would’ve been awesome for maps though
I just wanted to be able to read a book without (possibly) straining my neck :(
I feel like it would probably be terrible for your eyes, but I feel ya.
Audio books maybe?
They’re just not the same for me, unfortunately. They have a place, but I prefer reading.
Are audiobooks with subtitles still audiobooks?
I wanted to be like the kid from Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide and have a mouse wired up to it. Lol.
Companies keep trying to recreate something similar for motorcycle helmets
Apple Vision Pro
Seems only the influencers took the bait. And then they returned it once the channel had its run. Anyone know of any real world users/ uses for it?
Probably nothing beyond normal VR stuff. It’s still pretty new and it sounds like Apple is still trying to figure out the chicken or the egg problem when it comes to developing an entirely new platform and have decided to try putting the egg first to see if anyone will incubate it for them. Who knows if they’ll commit long enough for it to pay off. Tbh I can see VR enthusiasts still getting something out of it since it sounds like people have figured out how to get it working with steamvr. Other than that though, I don’t really see any uses for it. I think they’re going to have to spend a lot of time looking for problems that are worth paying $1,000~$2,000 to solve (I’m assuming that’s what a “consumer” version would cost), and then refine their solution until it feels natural before widespread adoption will be a thing.
It’s actually got traction in industry where we were already exploring AR for things like using 3d models to enhance maintenance on large facility equipment.
Compared to the value prop of increased reliability and enhanced frontline accessibility of consumable model data its cost is not a barrier and its quality is a MASSIVE step up from the equipment we had.
I’ve heard about it being used in high cost per unit sales experiences too, like jets or whatnot, it haven’t seen that directly.
The Ouya
It would have been good if they didn’t lie so much about what you can do with it and fail spectacularly
Still have mine somewhere, I wonder if it would be possible to take a Shield and put it in there or a RPi…
Spicy take: high speed Internet (specifically high-speed) and cell phones.
What the fuck am I smoking?
Listen. Look around you. People expect for you to be connected 24/7. Your boss, your friends, family, they all expect you to be connected nowadays. Hell, Australia had to pass a law stopping employers from contacting you outside of work hours.
Then everyone has an opinion and they all want to share it (me too!), and if you don’t have an opinion, you’re a fucking weirdo, a dirty centrist, ignorant, or many other things (you’re probably a Nazi or something, shithead).
Social media is designed to make you feel like shit and you’re antisocial if you’re not on some social media site.
Everyone is depressed and tormented by the constant flow of negative information on their pocket squares that they feel obligated to subject themselves to, all because someone they care about will get mad or be disappointed if they don’t know or have an opinion about everything that happens every second of every minute of every hour of every day. I have a pocket square (which I’m using right now) because I feel like I have to have one nowadays. A significant amount of this is enabled by widespread high-speed Internet. Some of it would still exist, but a lot of it would become unfeasible due to the Internet being too slow. Doesn’t matter if you have some crazy 32core phone with 64gb of ram and 2tb of ssd storage if you’re limited to T-1 speeds or slower.
Sigh I’m doing the “old enby yells at clouds” thing aren’t I?
Yes, the Internet is great and has done a lot of good things, and quite honestly, at the end of the day I honestly think it’s done more good than bad. But I also think it’s massively overrated at this point.
Cell phones kinda fit into the same category of, “everyone expects you to always be reachable”; and with the same conclusion (still good but overrated). I don’t know how I feel about non-cellular tablets.
Sounds like it’s extremely overwhelming, in a bad way. Wouldn’t call all that “underwhelming”.
You make a very good point. Things aren’t black and white and because something has produced Benefits, it doesn’t mean that it has only positive consequences.
I would have loved to see what the world would be like if the internet was only Gemini. The internet is incredible, but I have no doubt it’s more a curse than a blessing at this point.
The side effects of an amazing technology…but the technology is still amazing. I wouldn’t interpret it as overrated at all.
When something comes along that can be misused so easily, then it takes a conscious effort to avoid misuse. It’s the same with cars, processed foods, or any modern innovation really. Be the change you want to see. Reject social media. Turn off pretty much every phone notification. Have screen free time. Socialise without screens. I’m trying to do all these things. It’s difficult when no one else is interested in following suit and I just get excluded when I’m not on the platforms everyone else uses…but I’m trying to gather a circle of people who are aligned in this way of living.
That’s why I like Lemmy so much, quirky, slow updates, small…
The error was letting normal people in, like video games 🥲
Foldable phones - at least the early generations hat lots of troubles with the hinges and scratched screens.
Still as of today, testers are undecided if these category of devices really has a benefit compared to just buying both a tablet and a phone (and still saving money).
The people yearn for flip phones
I want one but I use a lot of apps still so I wouldn’t be able to replace my smartphone with it
Well the folding aspect is pretty good.
Software otoh…
Blink Security Cameras.
Record for 30 seconds, then can’t record for the next 10. So you miss 25% of whatever’s going on at your house. Can’t add other users, so anyone you want to give view access to your cameras, you just have to give them your password, and thus, full access. No web UI, just the mobile app. No Home Assistant integration. Subscription required.
Hold up, so I can just stand still in a room for >30 seconds to sync the timing, then spin in a circle for 32 seconds, then sprint right up to the camera and rip it off the wall?
Google Glass.
I hate it so much I’m almost sad it didn’t take off more for just a little while. Would have been fun to get the chance to hate it even more.
Segway scooter
Cybertrucks
Except it didn’t really sound promising
Smartphones in general.
But the convenience of being wired in every possible second of your life!
Dictating notes into my journal (eg obsidian/mediawiki/dokuwiki) is very nice though.
3D internet/web.
Self-driving cars
I bought into the hype 10ish years ago. I had expected it to revolutionise road transport.In my (in the industry) experience: Agile killed safe development by pushing superficial internal deadlines that look good instead of are good. Safety requirements therefore are never met, but people keep looking like they’re approaching at least one, but end up sacrificing other things that no one is concentrating on, causing more set backs than improvements. Self driving will not be legally commercialized until either someone lobbies bad development onto the roads, or capitalism realizes that quarter profit isn’t as important as ten year profit and Agile finally burns in a god damn fire.
Interesting take. Do you have any material about the shortcomings of agile? Podcasts or articles or w/e
I’ve seen a few, but it’s still kind of controversial. That being said, there is a time and a place for agile where it works, but also there is a team composition and a style of agile which works and that style tends to piss off micromanaging middle managers, so it rarely is allowed.
I had an article saved in my work slack before I left that company (for health reasons), but a currently popular one seems to be this one: https://johnfarrier.com/agile-failure-what-drives-268-higher-failure-rates/
My take is based on years of interaction with companies and friends in other companies. The biggest problem isn’t necessarily Agile, but instead that agile is not intended for long term projects. Agile is fantastic in short turnaround interactions such as web dev, and because these short turnaround places have such easily visible results, managers take them to be gospel. Thus comes Corporate Agile: https://web.archive.org/web/20240524230754/https://bits.danielrothmann.com/corporate-agile Link is from the Internet archive because I can’t find his new site if he moved.
Long story short, corporate agile is the agile the bosses want, as it allows them to be constantly involved with more and more “agile” meetings. You know. Meetings. The antithesis of Agile. The place productivity goes to die. I had to remind our bosses that Agile dictated that stand ups included the developers and the scrum master ONLY multiple times and pointed them to the agile training they gave me. Didn’t matter. They’re the boss. This is a pretty common breakdown in Agile. So, that turned daily standup into daily meeting, since the quick status updates now had to be broken down for the boss. Every. Single. Day.
Agile at its most basic is intended to reduce meetings to once a week so the rest of the time can be spent developing. Every company I know starts including devs in at least 300% more meetings (even junior devs) after switching to Agile for at least 6 months. And on average, it takes half an hour for a programmer to return to the level of productivity they hit before any interruption. This is generally due to the limitations of working memory. (Many research papers on this if you want.)
But to get back to the original point. Because agile concentrates on short immediately tangible and verifiable benefits, any progress that takes longer than a sprint isn’t allowed. (It actually is, with proper implementation, as Agile is supposed to be edited on a team by team basis to make things work, but companies want everyone on exactly the same page.) Guess what doesn’t have immediately tangible and verifiable benefits? That’s right, research. Guess what it’s still in a research phase? Aside from basically anything that isn’t in market yet, self driving technology is very much research driven. Lots of trial, error, and long development cycles. Longer than a sprint for sure. And anyone who says self driving is in market should try an exercise if finding one level 5 self driving car that hasn’t been recalled due to false marketing or safety concerns. The technology isn’t there yet. It could be getting there, but profits are getting in the way of progress.
Removed by mod
