The world's most incredible inventions that never took off
Daniel Coughlin
08 March 2018
Failure to launch
Inventions like jet packs, flying cars and wearable computers were tipped to transform the world, but have ended up disappointing big time. We take a look at 14 innovations that were slated to revolutionise the way we live but ultimately floundered.
Flying cars
Back in 1940, Henry Ford predicted a mass market flying car would be inevitable, but the concept has never got off the ground, and every attempt to invent a viable model has fallen flat and ended in failure.
Flying cars
Early models such as the Aerocar never made it past the drawing board and recent inventions like the I-Tec Maverick have failed to attract legions of buyers. Be that as it may, Ford's prediction may well come true in a slightly different form in the not too distant future. Several carmakers are developing passenger drones right now that could revolutionise the way we get around.
Nuclear-powered cars
Back in the late 1950s, nuclear-powered cars were actually a thing, and automakers genuinely believed we'd all be driving around in atomic vehicles someday. Ford even produced a concept model called the Nucleon, which was powered by a mini nuclear reactor. Yes, really.
Nuclear-powered cars
Just imagine the accidents. Beset with safety concerns, Ford's Nucleon never went into production. Still, nuclear-powered cars do sort of exist today if you count electric vehicles such as Tesla's Model S, which run on electricity partly generated by nuclear power plants.
Amphibious cars
The early precursors of these James Bond-worthy vehicles were developed in the 1900s, and a commercial model, the Amphicar, was launched in 1961. Almost 4,000 were produced from 1961 to 1965, but the Amphicar was never the huge success it might have been.
Amphibious cars
As one owner put it, the vehicle was neither a good car or a good boat. These days, Gibbs manufactures an amphibious car called the Aquada, but the technology remains niche and prohibitively expensive for most people.
3D TV
3D TV was supposed to transform our living rooms into spectacular 3D cinemas. Following the release of the movie Avatar in 2009, TV manufacturers were falling over themselves to embrace the innovation and build 3D functionality into their sets.
3D TV
Marketed as the future of home entertainment, 3D TV flopped. Besides a lack of content, people just weren't into wearing bulky specs and risking a headache to watch TV. Demand plummeted, and LG and Sony, the last two firms supporting the format, stopped making compatible sets in 2017.
Scent-enhanced movies
Smell-O-Vision inventor Hans Laube thought his method of releasing odours into a cinema auditorium so that the audience could smell what was happening in a movie would be adopted by cinemas worldwide when it launched simultaneously in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in 1960.
Scent-enhanced movies
It wasn't meant to be. Movie-goers complained about a hissing noise when the aromas were released and commented that the smells were out of sync with the movie. Along with a similar innovation called AromaRama, Smell-O-Vision was swiftly abandoned and consigned to the history books.
Jet packs
You don't have to be a sci-fi fan to wonder why we're not all flying around on personal jet packs in the 21st century. After all, the technology has been around for almost 100 years – the first gas-powered jet pack was invented in 1919 by Russian physicist Aleksandr Fyodorovich Andreyev.
Jet packs
A slew of hydrogen-peroxide jet packs were created in the 1960s. Kerosene turbojet and water-propelled jet packs followed but, despite years of research, getting un-aerodynamic individual humans into the air safely and cost-effectively has proven super-challenging, and a viable mass market jet pack has never been developed.
Internet refrigerators
Ever since LG launched the world's first model in 2000, the futuristic-sounding Internet Digital DIOS, state-of-the-art smart refrigerators have became a stalwart of trade shows almost to the point of becoming a long-standing joke, yet sales have been modest to say the least.
Internet refrigerators
Dubbed 'intellifridges', these connected appliances can order food online, suggest recipes and store notes. The thing is, few people have been prepared to part with up to $20,000 (£14k) to get their hands on one, especially since their PC or smartphone can do pretty much everything the fridge's inbuilt computer can.
Self-balancing scooters
The most infamous incarnation of the self-balancing scooter was launched in 2001 to a frenzy of publicity. The Segway PT was touted as being “more important than the internet” by venture capitalist John Doerr, and even the late Steve Jobs said the vehicle was “as big a deal as the PC”.
Self-balancing scooters
Sadly, the Segway PT was never a game-changer and, apart from minor success as a vehicle tourists hire for sightseeing or security guards use to patrol shopping centres, the self-balancing scooter has been a turkey. The fact that the Segway PT is banned on public roads in a number of countries around the world hasn't helped sales.
Electric pedal cycles
Years earlier, another vehicle that was set to transform our daily lives hit the market. The battery-powered one-person Sinclair C5 pedal cycle was unveiled in January 1985 by British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair at Alexandra Palace in London, but the vehicle was mocked from the get-go.
Electric pedal cycles
After some of the vehicles failed to work during the launch event, the British press savaged the Sinclair C5 and sales fell well below expectations. Deeply indebted, Sinclair ceased production of his eponymous vehicle later that year, and the remaining models were sold off at a knockdown price.
1990s VR
Virtual reality devices may be all rage nowadays, with the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift and gadgets from the likes of Sony and HTC flying off the shelves. But back in the 1990s, Nintendo came a cropper when it released an early version of the technology called Virtual Boy.
1990s VR
The immersive device was derided by critics for everything from its high price, monochrome display and bulky size to the lack of decent games. The gadget even made some people feel violently nauseous. Needless to say, Nintendo pulled the plug and the gizmo was quietly discontinued in 1996.
Betamax
Mentioning this video cassette format to anyone who was around in the late 1970s and 1980s is likely to elicit a mocking smile. The quintessential obsolete technology, Sony introduced Betamax in 1975, but the launch of rival format VHS by JVC the following year was its death knell.
Betamax
While Betamax offered better quality, VHS was cheaper and could achieve longer recording times. Adding to its ubiquity, JVC licensed out VHS while Sony kept the tech in-house. In the end, JVC won the format wars, and Sony lost its market share, finally discontinuing Betamax in 2002.
HD DVD
Sony was involved in another format war in the mid to late 2000s, only this time it emerged the victor. The firm's Blu-ray technology was up against rival Toshiba's HD DVD, with both vying to be the go-to format for storing high-definition video and audio.
HD DVD
Sony won the war by including a Blu-ray player in the PlayStation 3, ensuring a huge market for the technology. Toshiba threw in the towel and stopped developing HDTV in 2008, ceding the market to its competitor.
Five-wheel self-parking cars
If parallel parking is your nemesis, you may be a little disappointed the five-wheel self-parking car never made it past prototype stage. The vehicle was developed by designer Brooks Walker in the early 1950s on behalf of Cadillac.
Five-wheel self-parking cars
A series of hydraulic pumps and gears would push out the fifth wheel from the rear, so the driver could rotate the back of the car and glide into the space with ease. Cadillac shelved the project but Walker carried on designing parallel parking systems into the late 1970s.
Wearable computers
The clunky Xybernaut Poma was launched in 2002 with futurologists at the time predicting we'd all be sporting wearable computers and looking like cyborgs by 2020, or wearing intelligent internet-connected clothing at the very least.
Wearable computers
With 2020 less than two years away, that's unlikely to happen. Wearable tech for the masses is restricted to smartwatches, fitness trackers and VR headsets. As for the Xybernaut Poma, its steep price tag of $1,500 (£1.1k), poor battery life and cumbersome design put off customers and the device was discontinued.
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