Any organization, be it a multi-billion-dollar corporate behemoth or lowly startup, tin can launch a hyped product that turns out to exist total dud. We've seen our fair share of tech flops (this is the 2nd fourth dimension we round up products for a like list), and while some very quickly explode in a brawl of hot, fiery failure, others linger effectually for years before slowy fading abroad into obscurity.

In no particular order of uselessness, here are our top 10 biggest tech fails of the final x years.

Hoverboards

Explosive fun

What'south more dangerous than an exploding phone? How about a toy aimed at kids that spontaneously catches burn down? Not content with the run a risk of breaking limbs and maneuvering into traffic, several hoverboards came with an extra element of danger that could plough users into a non-superhero version of the Man Torch.

Not all the hoverboards were decumbent to bursting into flames; it was mainly the cheaply made knockoffs—of which at that place were a lot. But even some of the bigger name brands found themselves banned from retailers such every bit Target and Amazon over condom concerns.

The last straw came when the U.s.a. Postal service followed the lead of a number of airlines, including Delta, United, and American Airlines, by banning the devices from air transportation. Call up: if a toy has the potential to bring down a plane, information technology should just exist given as a Xmas gift to people you lot really don't like.

Windows Telephone

(and the Nokia acquisition)

Similar a shambling zombie from the Walking Expressionless, Microsoft's Windows Telephone/Windows 10 Mobile initiative managed to hang around for years before 2022 saw it take the figurative bullet to the head.

Not everyone disliked Windows Phones, and some of the Lumia handsets weren't all that bad, just even though the concept of the Windows Mobile platform sounded good, it struggled to elevate users abroad from Android and iOS. Little support from app developers and a lack of features you would expect to see in a smartphone ensured that the mobile market was one manufacture Microsoft wasn't going to boss.

In July, three years later on version viii.i shipped to users, Microsoft dropped support for the Windows telephone. Simply at to the lowest degree Windows 10 Mobile was still alive—up until the start of October, that is, when a Microsoft exec said it was no longer a focus for the company.

The Yahoo hack

1 billion 3 billion accounts

Picking the biggest hack fail from the last x years isn't easy, only that's only because you're so spoilt for pick.

The ongoing nightmare that is the Equifax breach is a shut contender, every bit is the MySpace hack that's thought to have exposed over 427 one thousand thousand passwords. But if you desire a true disaster, look toward Yahoo, who admitted that every single 1 of its iii+ BILLION accounts was affected in a 2022 attack.

Was Yahoo—a company with enough problems as it was—trying to soften the blow by initially announcing a mere 1 billion people had been hacked? Perhaps; 3 billion is, after all, the rough equivalent to one-half the globe's population. Even with multiple accounts, that's an atrocious lot of victims.

While information such as names and passwords were encrypted, Yahoo was using the notoriously insecure MD5 hash algorithm. Hackers were too able to access users' security question answers and backup email addresses used for lost passwords, making the whole thing a disaster of truly ballsy proportions.

3D Press (for consumers)

The printing revolution that wasn't

Let'due south become this out of the way first: 3D printing is extremely pop inside the industrial sector, where information technology'southward been used with great success in everything from function buildings to tires to bone replacements. Commercially, even so, the engineering science all the same hasn't found its place amid not-techy members of the public.

Like one or two other products on this list, most people merely don't know why they would want or need a 3D printer, most of which remain pretty expensive. While the technology is astonishing, it remains a niche product; many people terminate using their pricey devices after getting bored of creating little figures.

Efforts are beingness fabricated to become more 3D printers into the homes of your average consumer, including a study that showed how much a person would save by printing out ordinary household goods instead of ownership them. Just even now, years after the first commercial versions hit the stores, they're a rarity in nearly homes.

Google+

What do Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn all have in common? People actually utilize them.

It's hard to believe now, but back when Google launched a new social network in 2022, Mark Zuckerberg declared "total war" on the company, put Facebook on lockdown (i.e. stopped anyone from leaving the edifice), and starting quoting philosopher Cato the Elder. In hindsight, he probably overreacted.

A year later launch, Google Plus was starting to await promising, with over 400 meg people signed up and more than 100 million of them actively using the service each month. But since Google used to make everyone who used its services register a Google+ account, that kickoff number wasn't painting an authentic picture. Information technology may accept had two.2 billion users in Jan 2022, but just iv-7 million of them engaged, interacted, and posted publicly on the network during that month.

While information technology did boast some differentiating features, Google+ was, ultimately, an awful lot similar Facebook; only not as good. And while Zuckerberg's social network was taking off and gaining a reputation as the successor to Myspace, Google'southward take on social media fast became a bit of a joke. Today, very few people utilise Google+, but like a punch-boozer boxer who refuses to retire, Google won't call fourth dimension on its platform.

Milky way Notation seven

A truthful disaster

Samsung, ever eager to prove information technology does everything bigger and improve than anyone else, showed the world what a tech fail really looks like with the Milky way Note 7.

It's easy to forget at present, merely before the handsets started turning into Hitman-manner assassination weapons, the Note 7 received rave reviews, with many critics calling information technology the best Android device available at the time. Sadly, two then-unknown bombardment defects ensured this phone would be forever remembered for all the wrong reasons.

From planes to hotel rooms, the Annotation 7s acquired fires everywhere. Samsung wisely offered owners replacement handsets that were guaranteed not to explode, a promise the company struggled to proceed when they started exploding. In early on October 2022, all production of the Note 7s stopped.

Only a company as big as Samsung could recover from a disaster that toll $17 billion in lost sales. Nearly one year afterwards, the Galaxy Note 8 received more preorders than any other handset in the Annotation line's history.

Windows x updates

Ridiculous forced updates

Imagine someone wants to give you a souvenir, only you're non interested in receiving information technology. At present imagine this person is not only harassing you day and night to accept said souvenir, but also starts trying to play tricks you into accepting it. Somewhen, they give up and punch it down your ungrateful throat. That person is Microsoft, and the present is the free Windows ten upgrade offer.

The Redmond firm tried every fob in the volume to get people to upgrade to Windows 10 via the gratuitous offer, from making it a recommended update instead of an optional one, to forcing automatic installs onto users without informing them. And let's not forget the overwhelming amount of malware-similar popups that ruined weather reports and Counter-Strike Twitch streams.

Speaking of malware, even Microsoft itself admitted it went also far with one detail element of its Windows 10 cause: turning the standard 'shut pop-up' corner X symbol into a way for users to unwittingly give consent for an upgrade to accept place.

Smartwatches

Then you bought 1, but practice y'all use it?

A pretty controversial entry, admittedly. While smartwatches certainly oasis't been a failure on the same level as most other entries on this listing, they are withal struggling to detect their place in the marketplace several years later the first mod devices arrived.

While lovers of all things Apple tree appear to be buying the iPhone maker's wrist-based product in droves—the visitor overtook Fitbit as the world'due south top wearables vendor earlier this year—most smartwatch companies go along to experience falling sales.

The main problem with smartwatches is that most people don't know why they'd want i when they have a smartphone, which is kind of like a larger, better version of a smartwatch that lives in your pocket. Information technology's a sentiment that was echoed past the CEO of Huawei, a company that has fabricated ii Android Wear watches.

Smartwatches could be facing a more than optimistic time to come. Qualcomm is working on chips that should make them smaller, smarter, and with extended battery lives, while more unusual designs such every bit the Kronos ZeTime, along with luxury models from brands similar Tag Heuer, offer more appeal. Just the original programme for smartwatches to be equally ubiquitous as smartphones hasn't come up to fruition.

Theranos

Ok, this is even worse than the Note vii

The idea of being able to replace the unpleasant needles used in blood tests with a simple prick of a finger sounds great. That was the merits made by Theranos; its Edison machine applied science appeared and so compelling that the company managed to enhance more than $400 million in funding by 2022, non to mention an estimated value of $9 billion. But at that place was a problem: just 15 of the 240 tests it offered were conducted on the Edison Machines, and the lab results were sometimes inaccurate.

Two years' worth of Theranos claret tests were declared void and the company faced federal criminal and civil investigations. Founder Elizabeth Holmes, who had in one case been on Forbes' 400 richest Americans list, saw her net worth fall from $four.5 billion to a big, fat aught. The moral of the story? If something seems too good to exist truthful, information technology usually is.

Amazon Fire Phone

That 1 fourth dimension Bezos was non even close

Amazon: one of the biggest tech companies on earth with the richest person in the world at its captain. Surely everything information technology tries turns to gold? In reality, information technology's had a few failures, including Amazon Destinations and WebPay, just nothing compares to the public humiliation that was the Amazon Burn down Telephone.

It seems Jeff Bezos thought he could succeed where Microsoft failed. But despite quite a bit of hype in the runup to its release in 2022, the Burn Phone arrived to some very average reviews, thanks to a 3D effect that was more than gimmicky than anything else, mid-range specs, and a price tag that was too high for such a device.

A month later release, it was estimated that fewer than 35,000 people had bought i of the phones—a far cry from the millions of handsets big companies shift on launch solar day. Amazon dropped the price from $649 to $199 and wrote off $170 million as a result of the failure. In September 2022, it finally depleted the remaining Burn Phone inventory, at which indicate Bezos probably wept with joy.

Honorable mentions

  • The Equifax Hack
  • Hd DVD
  • Google Glass

TechSpot Series: The Win/Fail series continues adjacent week

This feature is function of a TechSpot content series rolling out this month, run across what's adjacent:

  • Week i: The ten Biggest Tech Fails of the Last Decade
  • Week 2: Precursors to Today's Technology: These Products Had the Right Vision
  • Week 2 (bonus): Engineering Before Its Time: ix Products That Were Too Early to Market
  • Calendar week 3: 11 Tech Products That Were Supposed to Fail... But Didn't