18 top tech flops of 2007

[cjolley]

Some of them just amazingly predictable.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0712/gallery.tech_flops.fortune/

e.g.

Electronic voting machines
Election officials in Florida promptly order 5,000 units
Diebold tightens security after it is revealed that a simple virus can hack its electronic voting machines. Months later a hacker uses a picture of a key from the company website to make a real key that can open the company's machines.

Google
Are you a moron? Click here now!
To test Google's ability to block harmful advertising, Belgian IT security consultant Didier Stevens posts an ad that reads "Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!" It is accepted by Google and displayed 259,723 times; 409 web surfers actually click on the ad.

Apple
One, two, three, four, we'll sue you if you send us more
Nine-year-old Shea O'Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple's legal counsel stating that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.

[Dr Mordrid]

They don't call it the European Union for nothing


To highlight its role as a patron of the arts, the EU posts a mashup on YouTube featuring two dozen sex scenes from movies it has funded, followed by the line, "Let's come together."

Just pop in your Birth of a Nation DVD, and you're off and running ...


To promote the speed of its Core 2 Duo Processor, Intel releases a print ad featuring six bare-shouldered black sprinters crouched in their starting positions beneath a white guy dressed for the office. "We made a bad mistake," says Don MacDonald, the company's director of global marketing. "I know why and how, but that doesn't make it better."

and let's not forget #1 with a bullet;

The bad news is that 2008 is the Year of the Rat.


During 2007, the Year of the Pig, Mattel is forced to recall almost 20 million items made in China because of lead paint on toy cars and tiny magnets that could be deadly if swallowed. Lead paint problems are also found in 844,000 Chinese-made Barbie accessories and toys with the Sesame Street brand.

Pet food makers recall more than 60 million cans of food laced with tainted melamine in wheat gluten from China. A huge underground distribution network for steroids, human growth hormones, and other bodybuilding drugs is traced to 37 companies in China. Chinese-made lunch boxes, given away by the California Department of Public Health to promote healthy eating habits among children, are found to contain lead.

Nike recalls 235,000 football helmets because the Chinese-made chin cup has a defective strap and has caused at least two concussions and a broken nose. Ethylene glycol is found in Chinese-made toothpaste. The government of China executes the former head of its State Food and Drug Administration.

[Nowhere]

How exactly EU one is a tech flop? (BTW..."EU"? who is this "EU" they talk about?) Or the "stock market speculant" one? Or the Apple one? Or Vaportech one? Or God of War II one? Manchester Cathedral one? Verizon & Pro-Choice one? Checkout one? OLPC one? WikiScanner one? Intel one?

Yeah, seems 11 "flops" ("" because status of some as flops can be disputed...) out of 18 on that list didn't have much to do with technology...I guess the list is one of the biggest flops itself?

PS. OTOH perhaps exactly such nonsense appeals to readers of monney.cnn...