Worst tech predictions ever

[L-mental]

This are the top 10 according to T3 magazine:


1. The iPod will never take off – Sir Alan Sugar in 2005

2. No need for a computer in the home – Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp in 1977

3. "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years" – Alex Lewyt, president of the Lewyt Corp vacuum company

4. TV won't last because people would, "soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night" – Darryl Zanuck in 1946

5. In 1933, after the first flight of the Boeing 247, a plane that could hold ten people, a proud Boeing engineer reportedly said, "There will never be a bigger plane built."

6. "We stand on the threshold of rocket mail" – US postmaster general Arthur Summerfield in 1959

7. Nobody would ever need more than 640KB of memory on their personal computer– Bill Gates in 1981, allegedly.

8. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys" – Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the Post Office in 1878

9. Spam will be solved – Bill Gates, 2004.

10. "X-rays will prove to be a hoax" – Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, in 1883.









:lolflag:



any other you are aware of?
-please beware that when talking about bad predictions the references to anything related to the Clippers or the Dolphins are not allowed-

[sonicb00m]

I am sure number 7 was more akin to "640kb of memory should be enough for anyone". Meaning at that time it was enough.

[Bungo Pony]

Here's an entire book about the year 2000.... written in 1979:

http://www.goaste.cx/goaste/usbornebookofthefuture001.html

[Paqman]

http://www.goaste.cx/goaste/usbornebookofthefuture001.html

That's one scary-looking URL.

[Bungo Pony]

That's one scary-looking URL.

Read it carefully. It's not what you think ;)

[L-mental]

Wow thanks, amazing reading!!!!!

Reading that I get this feeling about us humans... we're underachieving big time.

[handy]

The Earth is flat. (http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm)

[Koori23]

The Earth is flat. (http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm)

I read some of that.. I can't figure out if it's a joke or not.

Besides, don't we have pictures of the earth.. I think it's pretty famous, it's called "earthrise" taken by Apollo 8,

http://www.physics.unlv.edu/~jeffery/astro/earth/nasa_earthrise_002.jpg

[Paqman]

I read some of that.. I can't figure out if it's a joke or not.


The site looks like a spoof, but the Flat Earth Society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth_society) is real.

Interestingly, it seems the idea that the Earth is flat is a relatively new idea. It seems to originate in the 19th century. All of Columbus's peers knew the Earth was round, for example.

[Namtabmai]

Seem to be missing one of the more obvious ones;



"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern ship building has gone beyond that."

-Captain Smith, Commander of Titanic

[sdowney717]

The universe is flat!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/727073.stm

who would have thought that God created a flat universe?
It makes a lot of sense cosmologically,


1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.


Originally Posted by handy View Post
The Earth is flat.

[chucky chuckaluck]

cds are both flat and round. why can't the earth be, as well?

[lukjad]

"Linux will overtake Microsoft this year."
--By countless enthusiasts.

[MikeTheC]

"The monolithic kernel is a bad design, and your project would have gotten an F in my class."

-- Linus Torvalds' computer programming teacher to Linus

[L-mental]

* "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

* "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949

* "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

* "But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

* "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

* "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

* "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor.

* "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

* "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

* "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind."

* "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

* "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

* "Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.

* "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

* "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

* "It will be years -- not in my time -- before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1974.

* "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869.

* "With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.

* "That Professor Goddard with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react--to say that would be absurd. Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work. The remark was retracted in the July 17, 1969 issue.

* "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." -- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

* "Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality." -- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

* "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Workers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

* "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

* "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.

* "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.

* "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

* "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

* "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

[EdThaSlayer]

The Earth is flat. (http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm)

I heard these guys were still alive and spreading their false propaganda. :p

[EdThaSlayer]

"The monolithic kernel is a bad design, and your project would have gotten an F in my class."

-- Linus Torvalds' computer programming teacher to Linus

How bad the teacher must feel now. He can't say that he helped Linus become the genius he is today. :KS

[pp.]

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." -- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

I use Nautilus several times a day, sometimes for hours on end, and I still haven't any muscles worth speaking of.

[lukjad]

Ah! But they are consistently undeveloped.

[b3n87]

1. The iPod will never take off – Sir Alan Sugar in 2005


Sir Alan Sugar has made many mistakes with computers and computer related products

[Twitch6000]

This video shows alot of good ones and is a Linux Commercial too lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBUgEx_91BU

[urukrama]

2. No need for a computer in the home – Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp in 1977

This is not necessarily a prediction, but could be a value judgement. We might have created a need for a computer in the home, but do we really need it?

[SunnyRabbiera]

"Linux will overtake Microsoft this year."
--By countless enthusiasts.

Well hey it can still happen one day, linux adoption is taking off slowly but surely.

[dannytatom]

This video shows alot of good ones and is a Linux Commercial too lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBUgEx_91BU

Oh man, I liked that ad. :O

[lukjad]

Well hey it can still happen one day, linux adoption is taking off slowly but surely.
Oh, definitely. But in one year? That's a statistical improbability. I really hope that doesn't happen, simply because the support mechanisms aren't in place.

[Trail]

This is not necessarily a prediction, but could be a value judgement. We might have created a need for a computer in the home, but do we really need it?

Considering that I can't possibly imagine myself living without one, yes.

[lukjad]

But that's a WANT, not a need. Really, if you had to do without, you don't NEED Internet, there is the telephone and mail. You don't NEED open office, there is a typewriter. You don't NEED "Halo 3", you can play that paintball game. We can have calculator and paper for the rest. Sure, it's convenient, but it's only a bunch of other devices rolled into one.

[beercz]

But that's a WANT, not a need. Really, if you had to do without, you don't NEED Internet, there is the telephone and mail. You don't NEED open office, there is a typewriter. You don't NEED "Halo 3", you can play that paintball game. We can have calculator and paper for the rest. Sure, it's convenient, but it's only a bunch of other devices rolled into one.
How far do you want to take this? You need food and water to survive, shelter for protection. Everything else becomes a want to make us all more comfortable. Maslow's heirarchy of needs springs to mind here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

[lukjad]

Well, my point is, while it is useful, it is not a need. I'm not knowledgable in Maslow's work, so I can't comment on that. But, while it may not be a need, I really don't want to lose my computer. ;)

[koenn]

"The monolithic kernel is a bad design, and your project would have gotten an F in my class."

-- Linus Torvalds' computer programming teacher to Linus


Andy Tannenbaum said that.
He wrote MINIX and teaches operating systems design at the computer sciences dept. of a university in the Netherlands, but he never was Linus' teacher.

Torvalds opted for a monolitic design because he found it easier, not necessarily better.

[koenn]

"2001 will be the year of Linux on the desktop"

--- numerous computer magazines and related folk, december 2000-januari 2001

"2002 will be the year of Linux on the desktop"

--- numerous computer magazines and related folk, december 2001-januari 2002

"2003 will ....


and so on.

[koenn]

" .. won't be big and professional like gnu) ... and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks "

Linus Torvalds, announcing Linux, 1991

[Trail]

But that's a WANT, not a need. Really, if you had to do without, you don't NEED Internet, there is the telephone and mail. You don't NEED open office, there is a typewriter. You don't NEED "Halo 3", you can play that paintball game. We can have calculator and paper for the rest. Sure, it's convenient, but it's only a bunch of other devices rolled into one.

That's a "NEED" as in addiction.