Terrible Technologies (All time worsts)

Think back to the good ol’ days of web 1.0 applications, AOL 3.0, and that incessant noise of your dial up connection and busy signals. Luckily for all of us who enjoy reliving obsolete technologies that have no current usage except sheer entertainment value, PC World published “The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time.”

In order to build suspense, I’ll be highlighting items taken from the list from bottom to top. At 24 is DigiScents “iSmell,” an interesting (& smelly) gadget shaped like a shark fin that recreated scents at the client level as you surfed the web. Lets just say this one was a “stink” bomb of a product. Moving up the list is the “eyetop wearable DVD player,” released in 2004. Bringing a new meaning to mobile computing, this system claimed to simulate a 14 inch screen but ended up making people queasy.

Onto my personal favorite, number 20 is the CueCat. Yes, I’m sure we all remember the strange barcode scanner sent to hundreds of thousands of the population in order to “connect” readers to advertisers. Upside: you don’t have to type in URLs. Downside: the installed software gathered personal data on users. Next up is CometCursor, another application which, at first glance, seems harmless as you decide to change your cursor from your average “arrow” into something a little more…festive. Too bad it turned out to be spyware.

Jumping up to number 7 is Microsoft’s Bob, released in 1995. According to Wikipedia, Melinda French Gates, Bill Gates’ wife, worked on the bob project. Bob worked to guide us through a screen transformed into a home, where clicking on different items would launch applications. Even Bill Gates is quoted saying, “bob died” in a January 1997 column. RIP Bob, 1995-1996.

I know you’re all wondering, what tops the list in PCWorld’s eyes? AOL. Maybe it’s the ridiculous number of free trial disks we’ve all received in our lifetimes or the fact that we all know someone who still has it, but I don’t disagree with the chosen gold medalist of this competition for the title of the most terrible technology.