Not every high tech innovation has a huge impact. Here are 12 incredibly cool high tech gadgets that fell flat in the market, but which could have (and probably should have) changed the world.
Some of them were just a matter of the right product at the wrong time. Others are examples of bungled marketing. And some of the gadgets, while cool, were just a bit too weird for prime time.
Click on the "Next" button above to see the first gadget.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Newton (1987)
With tablet computers like the iPad (and its many Android competitors) practically flying off the shelves, it's sobering to remember that the tablet concept was actually responsible for Apple Computer's most visible and catastrophic failure, the Newton.
Despite its bad rap, the Newton was a very cool device. It was based on a muscular (for the time) CPU, and had handwriting recognition, along with a number of office-oriented tools of varying usefulness. However, it was a classic case of a cool device being before its time, and the project fell prey to corporate politics before it could really catch on.
If it had caught on, it certainly would have changed the nature of computing, making tablets popular 15 years earlier. Perhaps more significantly, a Newton success would have vindicated (then) Apple CEO John Sculley's decision to give Steve Jobs the boot. Sculley would likely be running Apple today, while Jobs would either be the head of Pixar or (just as likely) a footnote in Apple's history.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Connection Machine (1985)
The world was recently agog at how IBM;s Watson supercomputer handily defeated two Jeopardy champions. Watson's hardware is made up of many smaller processors all working together in parallel, a technique that emulates (to some extent) the massively parallel structure of the human brain.
But Watson is far from the first massively parallel computer. Way back in 1985, a computer scientist named Daniel Hillis built a massively parallel computer using funding from the defense department. Unfortunately, while the Connection Machine was more than a decade ahead of its time, the software to make it work was lacking, and the device continued to lag traditional computer designs in terms of usable performance. The company strugged until funding ran out, and declared bankruptcy in 1993.
But what if Hillis actually had managed to build a machine that emulated human thought? It's possible that we would already live in a world where computers were as smart or smarter than humans. In that case, the phrase "I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords" might not be, not a quip from a losing Jeopardy contestant, but the unofficial motto of a new world government.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Sceptre (1983)
It's a constantly quoted truism that the Internet has changed both the world of business and the world of entertainment. Today, television viewing is sharply down, while Internet surfing is the daily passtime of billions.
Few realize, however, that we almost had the Internet all the way back in 1983, years before anybody outside of a research lab had ever heard of an ISP address. That's when AT&T introduced the Sceptre videotex terminal, which was a wireless keyboard-controlled system which delivered news, weather, sports, stock reports, banking, shopping, email, and other information to an ordinary television. The Sceptre was about the same price as today's a broadband connection ($39.95 a month) but it never caught on, even though it was marketed in several large cities.
If it had caught on, though, the world of high tech would be very different today. In all likelihood, the growth in PC sales would have been stunted in favor of creating massive servers to handle all the communications traffic. And AT&T would have ended up with all the market clout of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Ebay combined.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Hero Robot (1981)
Robots are big business today, but mostly they're devices used in factories, or for special purposes, like vacuuming up your floor. But that isn't what people really want. What people want from a robot is something more like R2D2 from the movie Star Wars.
Well, something very much like R2D2 was released as build-your-own kit. The fully-programmable Heathkit Hero had a sound detector that could hear frequencies from 200 to 5000 Hz, a light sensor that could detect the entire visible spectrum and some of the infrared spectrum. Its motion detectors could sense movements up to 15 feet away, while its on-board sonar capability could determine the range of objects from 4 inches to 8 feet away. It also had an optical encoder, which allowed it to precisely measure distances, so that it could navigate a pre-determined course.
The Hero's head and claw-arm rotated almost 360 decrees and was capable of picking up objects up to a pound in weight, in any direction. It also had a speech synthesis chip that allowed it not just to bleep and bloop, but speak in real human language. It even had a built-in breadboard for expansions, such as smoke detectors and burglar alarms. Despite its impressive specifications, the Hero never caught on.
But what if it had? Perhaps the Hero might have become the precursor of an entirely new product category that would have easily become more popular than the personal computer. As their arms and sensors became more powerful, the upgraded Heroes would be able to fetch, carry, clean, perform menial tasks, and generally integrate themselves into the home and office. Who knows, you might have ended up reporting to a robotic CEO.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Alto Workstation (1972)
Before the iPad, there was the iPhone. And before that, the iPod. And before that, the Macintosh. And, even before that, the Apple Lisa. Yes, Apple has been creating innovative, easy-to-use devices for decades. Even so, not everyone is aware that the user interface for all of those products is actually 40 years old.
That's right. The original design for today's computers and cell phones was pioneered way back in 1972 at Xerox for a device called the ALTO. It had a keyboard/mouse combination and a bit-mapped screen that included both menus and icons. Xerox turned the Alto into a product called the STAR graphical workstation in 1981, but it was never marketed well, and the bit-mapped screen didn't make much sense to office workers whose computer experience was limited to punch cards and character-based word processing.
But what if Xerox had successfully marketed the ALTO or even the STAR? It's very likely the IBM PC never would have become popular, and Apple probably would have remained in the garage where Steve Jobs was tinkering with computers. And since Xerox also had an advanced server operating system (known as CP-V), Xerox would likely have become the dominant player in both office automation and online computing.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Computer Space (1971)
Videogames are big business, with billions of devices (Xbox, Playstation, and Wii) sold every year. Even a fair number of PCs are sold with the intent to play video games upon them. And the video game that started it all was (of course) Pong, the ubiquitous coin-operated tabletop unit that became a tavern fixture in the mid-1970s.
But Pong wasn't the first video game. Pong's inventor, Nolan Bushnell, actually invented a much more sophisticated game called Computer Space, and released it in 1971, fully a year before Pong saw the light of day. Where Pong simply emulated table tennis, Computer Space featured two missile-shooting spaceships whizzing through a field of stars.
Computer Space was also extremely cool-looking, with a molded plastic exterior. So cool, in fact, that it made a cameo appearance in the sci-fi potboiler Solyent Green. Unfortunately, it was simply too complicated for people more accustomed to pinball and pachinko.
But what if it had caught on? The demand for more sophisticated games would have jump-started the video game industry, accelerating the technology and market penetration by five to eight years. There's even a possibility that gaming consoles might have thwarted the development of the home PC market because some of the early game consoles had (or planned to have) keyboard attachments, giving them the potential to offer word processing and other PC-like functions at a small fraction of a PC's cost.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
PicturePhone (1963)
Now that nearly every phone has a Webcam, sexting, online conferencing, and viral phone videos are all the rage. Even so, the idea of a video phone is actually quite ancient.
Developed at Bell Labs was back in 1956, the PicturePhone was released as an actual product in the Chicago area in 1963. Unlike smartphones and webcams, the PicturePhone operated over regular telephone lines. Unfortunately, when operating over long distances, it consumed as much bandwidth as 300 regular telephone calls, making them prohibitively expensive. However, Bell Labs hoped to make the technology more efficient over time.
The PicturePhone never caught on, though, because people were afraid that the device would be used for spying on them. But what if it had? The PicturePhone was expected to reach three million homes and offices by the mid-1980s, generating $5 billion a year in 1965 dollars -- roughly $30 billion today, adjusted for inflation.
The AT&T monopoly, strengthened with all that extra revenue, would have won the anti-trust lawsuit that led to its breakup and ended up as the universal Internet service provider in the United States, pushing smaller companies (like IBM) into the margins.
Note: I couldn't find a video of an AT&T PicturePhone, so here's a later version in use:
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Amphicar (1961)
Probably the strangest automobile ever manufactured was the Amphicar. It was street legal as an automobile, with a top spped of 70mph, but could be driven right into the water, where it could move along at 7mph. That's not very fast, but it's certainly faster than many urban highways during rush hour.
The Amphicar was built in Germany from 1961 to 1968, so a fair number of them were made, but they caught on as a major form of transportation. Even so, they were distinctive. I remember seeing one drive right out of the Potomac River just outside Washington D.C., and pull right onto a local road.
Imagine if the concept had really caught on, though. Perhaps the ability to drive on water might have limited the expansion of the highway system, since travel would also take place along waterways. Major cities would be full of canals rather than freeways, more like Venice than Los Angeles.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Beckman Computer (1950)
All of today's computers, of course, are descendants of the IBM 360 digital computer released in the early 1960s. Prior to that, however, many of the most sophisticated computers used analog, rather than digital, circuitry. It turns out that analog computers are in many ways superior to digital computers, especially for applications that deal with the real world, like controllers for piloting aircraft.
In the 1950, there were dozens of companies making analog computers, but one company, Beckman Instruments, was building room-sized machines that rivaled the IBM 360 in complexity. Beckman's machines were actually MORE sophisticated than IBMs, using pushbutton keyboards rather than punch cards.
Alas, the IBM 360 proved so successful that it swamped the analog segment of the market. If that hadn't happened, though, it's possible that analog computers might have remained state-of-the-art. And that would have made applications that interface with the real world (like cell phones) easier to develop than the number-intense applications, like accounting, at which the IBM 360 (and its descendants) excelled.
Since I can't find an example of the Beckman computer in operation, here's a guy who recreated an analog computer that emulates a bouncing ball. It's a simple application but it's actually simulating the ball with far greater accuracy than a comparable digital computer could hope to do:
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Analytical Engine (1837)
The first programmable computer was (almost) built by the mathematician Charles Babbage in 1837. He had already built the Difference Engine, a special-purpose calculator that tabulated logarithms and trigonometric functions. The Analytical Engine was an order of magnitude more complicated, with punched card input and output via a printer, a curve plotter and a bell. It could also punch cards for future usage.
There's no question that the device would have worked as designed, and it would have been more powerful than any computer built until well into the electronic age. Assuming that Babbage had continued developing the concept, it might have ushered in what might be best described as a "steam punk information age". Easy access to computer power would likely have made it possible for later scientists, like Edison, Bell and Tesla, to bootstrap their projects more quickly.
As a result, nearly everything available today, in terms of technology, would likely have been pushed back fifty years. That, however, might not have been a good thing, since then the atomic bomb would have been developed prior to World War I, thereby creating incalcuable havoc.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Antikythera Mechanism (150 BC)
Most people think that accurate clocks are only a few centuries old. In fact, there was a device available in ancient times that was more accurate, in terms of being able to calculate the passage of time, than any device prior to the 19th century.
In 1900, a odd apparatus was recovered from a wrecked ship, estimated to have sunk sometime between 150 and 100 BC. Scientists have since discovered that the device was a mechanical computer, capable of calculating the positions of planets and stars with astounding accuracy. The degree of mechanical sophistication is comparable to a 19th century Swiss clock. It was so precise that it accounted for leap years in its calculations.
Unfortunately, the technology appears to have been a dead end. However, it potentially could have been combined with a pedulum and weights to create a series of ever-more accurate clocks. Such an innovation would have created quick advances in the art of navigation. As a result, the "New World" might easily have been colonized by Europe a thousand years earlier, changing the entire face of the geopolitcal world.
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12 Cool Gadgets that Could Have Changed the World
Aeolipile (222 BC)
It's well documented that the piston steam engine started the industrial revolution in the 18th century, by making it possible to utilize vast amounts of energy without resorting to water, wind and muscle.
However, the steam turbine -- a technology in some ways better and more efficient -- was actually invented in Greece over 2000 years ago. The aeolipile consisted of a sphere or cylinder, arranged to rotate on its axis, with curved nozzles projecting from it., When the vessel was pressurized with steam, the steam shot through the nozzles, causing the vessel to spin rapidly.
Despite the possibilities, the aeolipile was never harnessed to any machinery. However, if somebody had thought to connect it to a fan belt, and use it to run even the simple devices available at the time, it would almost undoubtedly have ushered in the Industrial Revolution many centuries before it actually happened.
In all probability, the Romans would have never conquered the Greeks, the dark ages would never have taken place, and we'd today be living a world with technological marvels that are beyond our present imagination.
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