Products like the Apple Newton and the Nintendo Power Glove immediately come to listen when reminiscing most technology that was before its fourth dimension. Despite their innovative nature and cutting-edge features, still, most are remembered as firsthand failures for one reason or another. We won't be concentrating on those here today.

Instead, this commodity volition focus on products, services and ideas of yesteryear that didn't necessarily flop out of the gate. Some were quite popular and are notwithstanding around today while others were a fleck more obscure only all had a vision that helped shape today'southward technological landscape. Let's take a await.

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)

Came earlier: WhatsApp, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat

Before mobile devices and social networking, online chat applications were the go-to advice method for millions of figurer users. Master amid them was AIM, a peer-to-peer chat program that originally came baked into AOL's suite of Internet products in the tardily '90s.

The app was later released as a standalone download and competed for supremacy aslope other popular chat apps like Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ and MSN Messenger. It remained pop through most of the concluding decade – an eternity in technology time – but AOL's inability to gain traction with the mobile generation ultimately led to its demise.

AIM is scheduled to shut down on December xv although its influence can be felt in many of today's elevation conversation apps including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat.

Digg (news aggregator)

Came before: Reddit, Quora, Flipboard

Reddit, one of the most popular Internet destinations for millennials, owes much of its success to a social news site that came earlier it. Digg got its outset in late 2004 as an experiment to facilitate the discovery and sharing of content from around the spider web. Its creators bolstered the service with new and innovative features over the coming years and were rewarded with a loyal fan base that drove immense amounts of traffic to the site. The concept was similar to Slashdot admitting for all types of content, not just tech stories.

Digg was far from perfect, nonetheless, equally some members figured out how to game the voting system for political and fiscal gain. The site also battled with censorship issues merely the harbinger that broke the camel's back came in August 2022 with the release of Digg v4, a bug and glitch-ridden overhaul that removed many of the site'southward almost beloved features.

Days later on, disgruntled users staged a "quit Digg day" that resulted in many users defecting to Reddit. Digg managed to survive the mass exodus, merely was eventually sold for a fraction of its previous value and no longer resembles its former cocky.

Motorola Atrix 4G smartphone

Came before: Chromebooks, Samsung Dex, potentially other future phones

Motorola came to CES 2022 with a doozie of a smartphone. The Atrix 4G was among the commencement to feature a dual-core CPU which, co-ordinate to Motorola, was powerful enough to allow you lot utilize the handset every bit a total-blown desktop estimator (except information technology wasn't).

The Atrix 4G was sold aslope your choice of a desktop or laptop mobile dock. The thought was elementary – plug the telephone into the dock and utilize its dual-cadre processor and 1GB of RAM equally the brains of a standalone figurer.

It was a novel concept but Motorola was besides early to market with it. A dual-core SoC from 2022 simply wasn't powerful enough to drive the experience and Motorola asked way too much for the accessories ($499 for a laptop dock that was useless without the phone).

Android was withal in its infancy -- the handset shipped with Android two.2 -- as was the smartphone industry every bit a whole. Motorola wasn't actually committed to the idea, either, particularly after the visitor was sold to Google a few months later.

In Motorola'southward defence, several others have launched like efforts in recent years to no avail (Samsung Dex and Microsoft Continuum immediately come up to mind). I've included it here today considering I believe the concept still has legs. It may exist a few years out simply with adoption of mobile devices skyrocketing, their current and future potential operation, and mainstream PC usage transforming in different form factors, we could somewhen see the 2 platforms merge.

Sega Game Gear handheld console

Came before: Nintendo DS, PSP, PS Vita, Nintendo Switch

The North American video game manufacture in the late '80s and early '90s was dominated by one name: Nintendo. While the visitor'southward NES and SNES consoles were all the rave at abode, it was the Game Boy that drew the assignment in the portable segment.

The handheld didn't get uncontested, nevertheless, equally arch rival Sega launched the technically superior Game Gear less than two years later on the Game Boy's arrival.

Codenamed Projection Mercury, the 8-bit handheld notably featured a full-color backlit display in a landscape format and a design that was much more comfortable to hold for long periods of fourth dimension. It was also somewhat reasonably priced at $149.99 albeit nevertheless more expensive than the $89.95 asking price of the Game Boy.

Unfortunately, Sega'southward Game Gear was hampered by poor bombardment life (about iii.5 hours per six AA batteries) and a lack of third-political party developer support.

Sega sold simply over 10 1000000 units during the Game Gear's 5-year lifespan, far fewer than the Game Boy. Nevertheless, it was an important stepping stone in portable console history as it helped pave the way for hereafter handhelds like the Genesis Nomad, PlayStation Portable, PS Vita and more recently, the Nintendo Switch.

Justin.boob tube livestreaming website

Came before: Twitch (Justin.tv set'south spin off), Facebook Live, Periscope

The ability to broadcast alive video over the Internet is easy to take for granted, particularly because the process wasn't nearly as straightforward (or accessible) only a decade ago.

Let'due south gear up the stage. In early 2007, BlackBerry and Palm were the predominate players in the "smartphone" industry. The iPhone was still a few months out and the first handset powered by Android wouldn't be announced until the end of the following yr. Cameras congenital into mobile devices were of such depression quality that they were practically unusable.

That'due south why, when Justin Kan launched Justin.tv set to stream a continuous live feed of his life over the Internet, he did so using a webcam affixed to a baseball game cap that was connected to a cellular network menu-equipped laptop in his haversack. Welcome to livestreaming in 2007.

The novelty of the concept, termed "lifecasting," attracted loads of media attention which Kan parlayed into a full-diddled video streaming platform. The gaming category took on a life of its own and was somewhen spun off as Twitch.Tv. The original Justin.television site shut down in mid-2014 and a few weeks after, Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million.

Platforms like Justin.idiot box pioneered live video on the Internet. Without them, services such as Periscope and Facebook Alive may not exist.

Casio Undercover Sender 6000 personal communicator

Came before: Danger Hiptop / T-Mobile Sidekick, Blackberry phones (Messenger), WhatsApp

This one is admittedly obscure and arguably didn't have a tremendous touch on the world of technology, but that's only because information technology was a toy that flew under the radar.

The Casio Hugger-mugger Sender 6000 was essentially a PDA for kids. Launched in the early '90s, it featured a digital screen and a full QWERTY keyboard for data entry and also served as a calendar, an alarm clock, a phone book, a calculator and more. The standout feature that captured my interest at the time (and the reason I'm including it here today) was its ability to send text messages.

The gadget – and rebrands like the Sega IR 7000 – featured an infrared sensor that allowed you to send short-range wireless text messages betwixt devices, and then long equally they were in the same room. Such functionality was mind-bravado at the time with Sega and others advertising it as a style to silently send messages betwixt friends, like during class. Nearly a quarter of a century later, text messaging is arguably i of the nearly popular methods of personal communication.

Sony Walkman and Discman

Came before: MP3 players, Apple iPod, any modern smartphone + music subscription service

Streaming services place a near endless supply of music at our disposal. It's a luxury that many of us use on a daily footing simply you lot don't take to think back very far to a time when portable music didn't really be.

Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka was frustrated past the inability to listen to opera music during trans-Pacific flights without the assistance of heavy, expensive sound equipment. In the belatedly '70s, he commissioned two sound sectionalisation engineers to come with a compact solution that boilerplate consumers could afford. Thus, the Walkman was born.

Although Sony technically wasn't the first to invent the portable cassette player (that honor apparently goes to Andreas Pavel), it was the first to discover success. The Walkman was a game-changer, allowing people to essentially add together soundtracks to their daily lives. The Japanese technology giant rocked the music manufacture again in 1984 with the introduction of the world's beginning portable meaty disc player. Affectionately dubbed the Discman, the player helped spark public interest in CDs and further cemented Sony's legacy as a premiere electronics manufacturer.

Sony may not be as popular equally it once was but its contributions to the music industry are undeniable.

Asus Eee PC netbook

Came before: Chromebooks, Apple iPad, Ultrabooks

Chromebooks are the get-to option for those needing a portable, full-featured computing solution on the inexpensive. They probably wouldn't exist, however, if it weren't for a major shortcoming that plagued their predecessors.

Asus at Computex in mid-2007 introduced the Eee PC, a line of ultra-affordable laptops originally intended for emerging markets. Characterized past small screens, compact keyboards, low-capacity storage drives and underpowered hardware, the machines quickly caught on with mainstream consumers and helped spawn a new category of portable computers known as netbooks.

The majority of netbooks shipped with versions of Windows that were designed for more than powerful hardware. As a result, most offered a subpar user experience that ultimately contributed to their downfall (the emergence of tablets didn't aid the cause, either).

Google's Chrome Os, however, is far less resource-intensive. Information technology likewise helps that modern hardware is much more powerful than the Intel Cantlet fries that struggled in early netbooks and of course, the cooling tablet market can't be overlooked.

TechSpot Series: The Win/Fail serial continues next week

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

  • Week 1: The ten Biggest Tech Fails of the Last Decade
  • Week two: Precursors to Today's Applied science: These Products Had the Right Vision
  • Week ii (bonus): Engineering science Before Its Time: 9 Products That Were Also Early to Market place
  • Calendar week 3: eleven Tech Products That Were Supposed to Neglect... But Didn't