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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech, and you know, I

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Speaker 1: occasionally like to do episodes like the one that you're

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Speaker 1: listening to now, where I talk about tech companies or

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Speaker 1: tech products are just tech in general that failed. Now

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Speaker 1: I would be fibbing if I said part of this

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Speaker 1: wasn't due to schaden freuda, you know, that weird sense

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Speaker 1: of pleasure you get from seeing someone else fail. I'm

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Speaker 1: not proud of that. It is a factor, But mostly

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Speaker 1: I like to cover these things to really look at

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Speaker 1: what went wrong when that is you know, determinable. So

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Speaker 1: was it just a bad idea? Was it a good

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Speaker 1: idea but ahead of its time? Was it you know,

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Speaker 1: poor execution? So it had nothing to do with the idea.

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Speaker 1: Was just the way that people tried to, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: take advantage of it? You know? Was it crumby people

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Speaker 1: scamming other folks or sacrificing the health of a business

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Speaker 1: for their own self gain or was it some combination

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Speaker 1: of these things or something entirely different. So today I

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Speaker 1: thought we would revisit some various companies and tech products

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Speaker 1: that failed and see what lessons we can learn, if any,

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Speaker 1: and maybe maybe you know, indulge our schadenfreude along the way. Also,

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Speaker 1: some of these are stories that I've covered in other

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Speaker 1: episodes of Tech Stuff, but since we recently passed the

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Speaker 1: one thousand, six hundred episode mark, I figure a lot

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Speaker 1: of y'all probably haven't heard those. I hope you'll forgive

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Speaker 1: me for going back over some stories I've talked about

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Speaker 1: in the past. But let's get to it, because there

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Speaker 1: are a couple of them where I feel like I

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Speaker 1: need to make some updates. So I figured to start

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Speaker 1: this all off it would be fun to talk about

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Speaker 1: Microsoft Bob, because not only was this a notorious flop,

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Speaker 1: but it also spawned some stuff famous the famously irritates

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Speaker 1: people to this day, like like the comics Sans font

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Speaker 1: Um often gets lumped in with Microsoft Bob. Let's let's

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Speaker 1: break this all down. What exactly was Bob Well? In

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Speaker 1: the early days of personal computers, using a computer was

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Speaker 1: a bit daunting for the uninitiated before g u I

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Speaker 1: or gooey operating systems. That's graphical user interfaces that would

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Speaker 1: be stuff like the Mac operating system and Windows. Before

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Speaker 1: all that we had DOSS. This was a command line

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Speaker 1: based operating system. That means you would have to type

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Speaker 1: in stuff to navigate the file systems and to execute programs,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't exactly intuitive, like you'd be doing c

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Speaker 1: D to change different directories and things. That these systems

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Speaker 1: were a bit of a barrier to entry for a

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Speaker 1: lot of folks because it just looked like, you know,

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Speaker 1: gibberish if you were to glance at the screen not

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Speaker 1: really understand what the command's all meant. But then you

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Speaker 1: had the gooey systems, the graphical user interface systems, so

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Speaker 1: you had stuff like Windows and mac os where you

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Speaker 1: can represent programs with icons, and clicking on an icon

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Speaker 1: launches a program. This is way easier to grasp than

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Speaker 1: using directory commands typed into a text based operating system.

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Speaker 1: But even this could be a little intimidating for new

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Speaker 1: users who had never worked with a computer ever, and

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Speaker 1: so some engineers at Microsoft came up with an alternative.

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Speaker 1: Bob replaced the familiar desktop layout of Windows three point

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Speaker 1: one with a cartoon representation of various rooms and the

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Speaker 1: objects in the room would stand end in as icons

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Speaker 1: for different programs. So if you wanted to check your schedule,

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Speaker 1: you could click on a calendar that's hanging on the

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Speaker 1: wall in your room. Do you want to look at

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Speaker 1: your monthly budget, you click on a little binder has

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Speaker 1: a dollar sign on it, and that's sitting on a

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Speaker 1: little coffee table. You even had a little dog named

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Speaker 1: Rover who would pop up in the corner and he

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Speaker 1: would give you either helpful tips or irritating ones on

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Speaker 1: how to navigate and use the system. Rover would serve

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Speaker 1: as a model for another Microsoft creation that would get

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Speaker 1: tons of hate over the years. That would be Clippy,

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Speaker 1: the paper clip that would pop up and say things like,

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Speaker 1: it looks like you're trying to write a letter, would

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Speaker 1: you like some help with that? And for the record,

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Speaker 1: I actually did not mind Clippy, except for the times

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Speaker 1: when it would try to help me do something that

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Speaker 1: I had done a thousand times before. The goal of

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Speaker 1: Bob was to map various computer functions to the real

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Speaker 1: life equivalent of the activities you would, you know, do

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Speaker 1: to manage the same thing. So it was to strip

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Speaker 1: all the computer stuff away and to make it really

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Speaker 1: intuitive to use. So what happened? Why did Bob flop? Well,

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Speaker 1: there are several reasons. One was that Microsoft's major update

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Speaker 1: to Windows, which was Windows, was right around the corner,

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Speaker 1: so getting an overlay for Windows three point one just

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Speaker 1: before Windows launched probably wasn't the best timing. Another was

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Speaker 1: that Microsoft Bob was a one dollar purchase at launch,

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Speaker 1: which is a pretty pricey piece of software. It was

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Speaker 1: also resource hungry, so to run Microsoft Bob you needed

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Speaker 1: a computer, and that was at least a four D

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Speaker 1: six meaning Ahead and Intel four a D six processor

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Speaker 1: or better. You needed eight megs of RAM and thirty

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Speaker 1: megs of disk space. Now today that's nothing. Your phone

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Speaker 1: has far more capabilities than that, But back in the

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Speaker 1: mid nineties this represented a fairly hefty computer, and not

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Speaker 1: that many people had them. But wait, there's more. According

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Speaker 1: to PETTERI Jarvinen and I know I've butchered the name,

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Speaker 1: I apologize anyway, a writer for a computer magazine, Microsoft

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Speaker 1: Bob also had non existent security. Alright, so Bob was

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Speaker 1: designed to work not just for individuals but for households,

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Speaker 1: So you could create a password for your account to

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Speaker 1: let you access Microsoft Bob. But apparently this was more

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Speaker 1: for personalizing your experience rather than securing it. As the

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Speaker 1: review said, if you entered a password incorrectly three times,

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Speaker 1: the assistant like Rover would pop up to help you

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Speaker 1: reset your password. Do you see an issue with that?

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Speaker 1: Let's say you and I share a computer, and I

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Speaker 1: happen to know that you've got a digital personal diary

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Speaker 1: on that computer, but I can only access it if

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Speaker 1: I were to log in as you, because you've protected

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Speaker 1: it in a private space that I don't have general

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Speaker 1: access to. Well, if this is true, if this piece

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Speaker 1: in Computer magazine was accurate, I wouldn't even need to

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Speaker 1: guess what your password was. I could type anything three

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Speaker 1: times in the password field, and then reset your password

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Speaker 1: to something I know and log in as you. Then

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Speaker 1: I can read all your juicy secrets in that diary.

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Speaker 1: When you try to log in, well, first it looks

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Speaker 1: like you're locked out of your account, but if you

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Speaker 1: enter the wrong password three times, you get to reset

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Speaker 1: the password again, and so it goes. Or you could

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Speaker 1: log into my account and reread Havock. I should add

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Speaker 1: that there were only a couple of reports that this

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Speaker 1: feature existed. Like I looked around to see if I

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Speaker 1: could find verification that in fact, this was something that

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Speaker 1: Microsoft Bob did, And in our episode where we talked

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Speaker 1: about Microsoft Bob many years ago, we talked about this

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Speaker 1: feature because that's what we were finding the reports on. However,

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Speaker 1: I do not have Microsoft Bob installed on my machine,

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Speaker 1: so I can't actually verify that that really happened, and

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Speaker 1: I did see some discussions that suggest that maybe that

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Speaker 1: wasn't the case. Maybe they were using an earlier version

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Speaker 1: of Bob or something. I don't know because I've never

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Speaker 1: personally used it, and I cannot verify this, So it's

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Speaker 1: a it's good to say that this is a possibly

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Speaker 1: apocryphal story, and I sure hope it is an apocryphal story,

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Speaker 1: because otherwise this is effectively the same as having no

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Speaker 1: password protection at all. Again, unless the password didn't exist

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Speaker 1: to secure things, but rather to create a personalized experience

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Speaker 1: for each individual who was using that computer. So everyone

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Speaker 1: with access to that computer would be able to log

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Speaker 1: in and see the UI that's laid out like a house,

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Speaker 1: and each person could create their own private rooms, and

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Speaker 1: they could even lock those rooms with password protection, but

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Speaker 1: there would also be public rooms that everyone shared. What's more,

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Speaker 1: you can make changes to public rooms. Actually can make

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Speaker 1: changes to your private rooms too. You can move stuff around.

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Speaker 1: You can even delete icons that go to applications. You

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Speaker 1: could vandalize rooms in other words, and I don't know

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Speaker 1: if the room passwords were connected to the user passwords,

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Speaker 1: or if they were if you could use the same

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Speaker 1: password trick that I mentioned earlier to get through it,

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Speaker 1: but either way, it's not a good solution. Even if

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Speaker 1: you logged in as a guest, you can make changes

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Speaker 1: to all the public rooms. You could delete stuff and

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Speaker 1: move things and hide icons in different places and just

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Speaker 1: make life generally unpleasant for the other people who use

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Speaker 1: that same shared computer or One last thing that really

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Speaker 1: killed Bob was that Microsoft didn't really want to make

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Speaker 1: deals with o e MS, or rather wasn't able to

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Speaker 1: make any deals with O E M S. And O

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Speaker 1: e M is an original equipment manufacturer, and those deals

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Speaker 1: would have had Bob pre installed on new computers, but

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Speaker 1: Microsoft didn't really pursue that. This is typically how companies

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Speaker 1: like Microsoft get their products on brand new machines. So

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Speaker 1: if you buy a computer off the shelf at a

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Speaker 1: retail store or online through most providers, chances are it

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Speaker 1: comes with an operating system and a suite of software

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Speaker 1: that's pre installed on that machine. So behind the scenes

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Speaker 1: you have these big deals going on, and Microsoft just

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Speaker 1: didn't really do that with Bob very much. So Bob

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Speaker 1: didn't Bob, Bob sunk. What's next. Let's talk about Microsoft

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Speaker 1: a little bit longer, just for a moment. There are

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Speaker 1: certain builds of Microsoft's Windows operating system that received a

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Speaker 1: really bad reputation. So, for example, Windows Vista, which was

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Speaker 1: released in two thousand and six, became the punching bag

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Speaker 1: for a lot of computer review magazines. It was following

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Speaker 1: up on the massively popular Windows XP operating system. In fact,

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Speaker 1: that operating system is so popular that there are still

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Speaker 1: some people out there using it like two decades later.

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Speaker 1: Windows Vista confused people like right all the gate because

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Speaker 1: upon launch there were six different versions of the operating

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Speaker 1: system you could choose from. There was Starter Home, Basic Home, Premium, Business, Enterprise,

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Speaker 1: and Ultimate. That immediately caused some confusion right away. Windows

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Speaker 1: Vista also required a pretty beefy PC to run well,

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Speaker 1: so people who wanted to just upgrade from Windows Xpedo

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Speaker 1: Windows Vista and still use their old computer, they often

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Speaker 1: found that the new operating system made their computer is

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Speaker 1: really sluggish and unresponsive. And I have complained multiple times

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Speaker 1: on this podcast about how I hate an operating system

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Speaker 1: that hogs up computer resources because back and rag J

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Speaker 1: years to dang dang, dsh prompt, and yet I liked it,

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Speaker 1: and it just it was a much lighter lift for

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Speaker 1: your computer, so more of your resources could go to

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Speaker 1: all the programs you want to run, not the operating

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Speaker 1: system that's in the background. Vista did improve over time,

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Speaker 1: but that initial launch version turned a lot of people off.

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Speaker 1: It was a really bad first impression. Microsoft would seemingly

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Speaker 1: learn its lesson, and when Windows seven came out, the

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Speaker 1: company incorporated the best of Vista's features while leaving out

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Speaker 1: the worst of them. And then came Windows eight. Alright,

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Speaker 1: so let's go ahead and do this one too while

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Speaker 1: we're here. Windows eight launched in twenty twelve, and you

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Speaker 1: know what, when I start looking at this list, I

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Speaker 1: see a lot of entries that hover around twin eleven

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Speaker 1: and twelve is launch dates. There was something about those

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Speaker 1: years anyway. This was Microsoft's attempt to unify the PC

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Speaker 1: and the tablet experience. I suppose the thought was that

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Speaker 1: there were all these computers coming out they had touch screens,

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Speaker 1: you know, laptops and just regular displays that were touch

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Speaker 1: screen displays, and that we were all going to migrate

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Speaker 1: to using computers that had these touch screen interfaces, even

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Speaker 1: though most people I talked to who have machines that

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Speaker 1: do have touch screen capabilities very rarely use the touch

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Speaker 1: screen part. But this meant that Microsoft really doubled down

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Speaker 1: on a user interface that just didn't take off. It

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Speaker 1: was really optimized for like that tablet touch screen experience,

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Speaker 1: but that didn't really work so well for desktop users.

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Speaker 1: And as a result, the operating system was not really

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Speaker 1: simple to use, and people hated it. Many people hated

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Speaker 1: it enough that they uninstalled it and went back to

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Speaker 1: Windows seven and again. Microsoft addressed many of the issues

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Speaker 1: of Windows eight with updates, but it really wasn't until

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Speaker 1: the launch of Windows ten that people came back round

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Speaker 1: two being excited about a more recent Windows build. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what happened to Windows nine, don't ask me.

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Speaker 1: And we'll have to see if the release of Windows

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Speaker 1: eleven will show that the company has actually learned its

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Speaker 1: lesson or if it will repeat its past mistakes. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's look at two thousand and twelve and get away

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Speaker 1: from Microsoft. Two thousand twelve is when Google introduced a

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Speaker 1: spherical media streaming device called the Nexus Q. And by introduced,

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Speaker 1: I mean unveiled, not launched. Uh. It kind of looked

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Speaker 1: a bit like a black bowling ball with you know,

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Speaker 1: a logo on it. It was sort of a predecessor

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Speaker 1: to Google's Smart Speaker homes system and the Google Chrome

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Speaker 1: Cat gadgets. The Nexus Queue was meant to bring streaming

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Speaker 1: media to the living room. Now by streaming media, I

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Speaker 1: should be really clear, the Nexus Que had very limited options.

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Speaker 1: You could stream YouTube videos, you could stream Google Play

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Speaker 1: movies and TV shows, or you could stream music from

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Speaker 1: Google Play Music, and that was it. This was two

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve. Netflix had been streaming content for five years already.

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Speaker 1: There are plenty of other streaming audio services out there

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Speaker 1: that were really interesting, and critics lamented that you had

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Speaker 1: such limited options on the Nexus Q. To control the

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Speaker 1: Nexus Que, you needed to pair a smart device with it,

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Speaker 1: whether it's smartphone or a tablet, and there was a

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Speaker 1: special app that you would run on that Android based device.

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Speaker 1: This would effectively turn your phone or tablet into a

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Speaker 1: remote control. There was no voice integration with the Nexus Q,

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Speaker 1: and it was expensive. The base model was meant to

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Speaker 1: retail for two dollars that didn't include speakers, so if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to use your Nexus Queue to listen to music,

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Speaker 1: you would have to shell out some extra dough for speakers.

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Speaker 1: Unless you just happen to have some speakers that had

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Speaker 1: you know, banana plugs, that's the style of plug that

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Speaker 1: would go into the Nexus queue, then you could repurpose

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Speaker 1: those for your Nexus queue. Otherwise you had to buy

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Speaker 1: new ones that could be a few hundred bucks. Buying

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Speaker 1: the cables would also set you back another fifty dollars

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Speaker 1: or so. Google handed out free Nexus Q units to

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Speaker 1: attendees of the IO event that year. I did not go.

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Speaker 1: I've only been to one I O event and it

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Speaker 1: was one of the ones where Google had nothing to

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Speaker 1: hand out. So uh, I mean, I'm not big on

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Speaker 1: getting handouts anyway, because I don't review products, so it'd

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Speaker 1: feel weird to get them. But this was one of

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Speaker 1: those things that sticks in my craw the fact that

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Speaker 1: the one year I go was Yere where there was

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Speaker 1: there was no goodies anyway. Apparently Google got some feedback

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Speaker 1: about how the Tech was lackluster in comparison with other

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Speaker 1: similar streaming solutions on the market, and Google pushed back

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Speaker 1: the planned launch date from the summer of twelve to never.

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Speaker 1: Google abandoned plans to launch it, so now they're just

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Speaker 1: kind of collector's items. I guess maybe now I could

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Speaker 1: do an entire episode just on Google failures. In fact

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Speaker 1: that I think I might have done that at some point.

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Speaker 1: So instead of that, we're going to cover some other

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Speaker 1: notable misfires in tech after we take this quick break.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're back. Let's get back to two thousand eleven,

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Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand and twelve and magical time and tech.

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Speaker 1: A startup called color Labs started up it right in

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven. They wanted to take aim at photo sharing

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Speaker 1: on smartphones with a brand new app called Color. Bill Nuen,

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Speaker 1: fresh off a massive deal in which he sold off

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Speaker 1: an earlier startup he had founded called La La. He

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Speaker 1: sold that to Apple for a whopping eighty million dollars,

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Speaker 1: founded Color Labs, and it was intended to compete with

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Speaker 1: apps like Instagram, which was not yet part of the

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Speaker 1: Facebook family back in twenty eleven, but it was going

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Speaker 1: to do this in a fundamentally different way. So rather

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Speaker 1: than follow specific people like your friends or celebrities or

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Speaker 1: you know, dogs that you know, I might be talking

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Speaker 1: more about my habits on Instagram here. Instead, you would

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Speaker 1: use color to look at photos that were taken an

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Speaker 1: uploaded near wherever you were in the world at that time. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, you would wander around the world. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's just your town, maybe it's a city you've never

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Speaker 1: visited before. You would whip out your phone, you'd open

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Speaker 1: up the Color app, and you would see who had

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Speaker 1: taken what photos near the spot you were in, which

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Speaker 1: I guess sounds interesting for certain types of experiences and photos,

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Speaker 1: but to me, it also sounds kind of like just

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Speaker 1: peeking in on the photos of people you most likely

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Speaker 1: don't know most of the time. I suspect that's pretty boring.

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Speaker 1: Or you're looking at photos, it's something that you can

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Speaker 1: actually see for yourself right where you are at that moment,

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Speaker 1: so you can say, like, hey, look, honey, someone uploaded

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Speaker 1: a picture of a tree that's right there, which doesn't

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Speaker 1: seem super compelling. Now I can see how such an

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Speaker 1: app might be interesting during big events that are happening

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Speaker 1: in a specific place like if you attended a concert

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Speaker 1: or a festival, or the Olympics or something, then you

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Speaker 1: might want to open up Color and look at photos

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Speaker 1: of other people were taking and uploading. But again, and

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Speaker 1: you'd likely get a ton of people who are taking

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Speaker 1: pictures with their friends, and you know, without knowing anyone

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Speaker 1: in the photos, you'd just be looking at random pictures.

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Speaker 1: Add to this issue the fact that the user interface

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Speaker 1: on Color was needlessly up tous, and you had a

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Speaker 1: recipe for failure. And that's exactly what happened with Color Labs.

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Speaker 1: The company is stuck around for a little less than

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Speaker 1: two years. Before it closed up shop. Color was a flop.

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Speaker 1: You know. One recent flop I feel like I need

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Speaker 1: to talk about briefly was Quimby, which I've done episodes

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Speaker 1: on before. Quimby was a failed service that that crashed

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Speaker 1: partly due to just incredibly bad timing and partly because

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Speaker 1: I'm just not sure that the actual use case for

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Speaker 1: Quimby was that compelling to start with. In other words,

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Speaker 1: you could blame the pandemic for Quimby's demise, but I'm

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Speaker 1: not convinced Quimby would have stuck around even if we

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Speaker 1: hadn't had the pandemic. Now, if you don't remember Quimby,

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Speaker 1: don't blame you. Even though it launched just last year.

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Speaker 1: It was a video streaming service in which subscribers would

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Speaker 1: be able to watch exclusive, highly produced content on mobile devices.

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Speaker 1: The whole use case for Quimby was that people like

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Speaker 1: to be on their phones. So you might, you know,

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Speaker 1: get in line somewhere like at the coffee shop, and

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Speaker 1: you look at your phone as you wait. So the

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Speaker 1: thought was, why not design an app that specifically targets

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Speaker 1: those people. This design extended not just to the user interface,

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Speaker 1: but also to the content itself. So, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: you could watch quimby content either in portrait mode or

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Speaker 1: in the landscape mode on your device, and your view

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Speaker 1: would shift to get a full screen experience, no matter

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Speaker 1: which way you were holding your smartphone, for example. But

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Speaker 1: this meant that content creators needed to be aware of that,

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Speaker 1: and that meant that they needed to be really careful

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Speaker 1: at how they film thinks, because if you were viewing

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Speaker 1: it in portrait mode, you know long ways like up

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Speaker 1: and down, you might miss out on important details that

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Speaker 1: would otherwise be at the edge of the frame. If

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Speaker 1: you were watching it in landscape mode, so filmmakers had

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Speaker 1: to take that into consideration. Otherwise, you know, like let's

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Speaker 1: say you're watching a mystery and there's a visible clue

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Speaker 1: if you're holding your phone and landscape, but when you

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Speaker 1: hold an in portrait, it's punched in and you don't

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Speaker 1: see that clue, You're missing out on something important. As

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Speaker 1: for the content piece, Quimby content was meant to be short,

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Speaker 1: like ten minutes, bite sized, quick bites. That's what Quimby was.

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Speaker 1: Content creators can make long form shows and movies, but

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Speaker 1: the user would access these in chapters that maxed out

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Speaker 1: at ten minutes. This meant that as a content creator,

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Speaker 1: you needed to structure your work so that you could

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Speaker 1: tell a story or at least an effective part of

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Speaker 1: a story, in ten minute chunks. For movies, this would

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Speaker 1: mean that would ideally have a piece, though it end

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Speaker 1: on a cliffhanger, and that kind of encourages the viewer

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Speaker 1: to keep watching and go to the next chapter, which

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Speaker 1: is sort of like a Dan Brown novel and just

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Speaker 1: as awful. I admit my bias is showing and I

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Speaker 1: don't care. The subscription models for Quimby came in two flavors.

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Speaker 1: You could cough up five bucks a month to watch

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Speaker 1: the content, along with ad support thrown in so you

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Speaker 1: would get commercials, or you could up that to eight

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Speaker 1: dollars per month and get an ad free experience. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't as expensive as some other streaming media platforms, so

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Speaker 1: at least it had that going for it. Back in ten,

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Speaker 1: when Jeffrey Katzenberg of Disney and DreamWorks fame first founded

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Speaker 1: the company, he brought on Meg Whitman to serve as CEO.

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Speaker 1: Even then, the idea was a long shot. But then

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Speaker 1: when the service launched in April of twenty the world

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Speaker 1: was in a very different place. COVID nineteen outbreaks meant

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Speaker 1: that the world was going into lockdown. People weren't finding

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Speaker 1: themselves in these situations that Quimby's founders had envisioned as

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Speaker 1: being the perfect scenarios to engage in Quimby content. Because

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Speaker 1: you know, there were no more lines, people were at home,

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Speaker 1: they could watch stuff on computers and television's. The short

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Speaker 1: form approach that was optimized for mobile just didn't make

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Speaker 1: much sense at that point. Making matters worse is that

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Speaker 1: the company really front loaded the content for launch. They

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Speaker 1: spent an enormous amount of money to have a library

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Speaker 1: of shows and films for users, and Quimby offered a

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Speaker 1: pretty generous free trial, but saw that many people simply

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Speaker 1: canceled their accounts rather than switching to becoming paid subscribers,

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Speaker 1: so it was unsustainable. Quimby was only around for about

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Speaker 1: half a year. The company announced it would be shutting

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Speaker 1: down and in early one it sold off all remaining

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00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: assets to Roku. Let's go from Quimby to Quirky. This

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Speaker 1: one was a heck of a one to look into.

404
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: I went down a rabbit hole while researching quirky. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And this one's an outlier in our list because Quirky

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Speaker 1: is maybe still around today, but it's in a different

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00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 1: form from what it was at launch. So back in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine, there was an entrepreneur, an inventor named

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Speaker 1: Ben Kaufman who launched this new company and the purpose

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Speaker 1: of this company was to give would be inventors an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to monetize inventions and turn them into real products.

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Speaker 1: And that was a kind of nifty idea. Of the

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Speaker 1: idea is that the inventors would submit their ideas Quirky analysts.

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Speaker 1: Analysts for quirky nut analysts who were quirky would review

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Speaker 1: the submissions and the good ones would get turned into products,

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Speaker 1: and the people who submitted the invention would get a

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Speaker 1: royalty on a per sale basis. Uh, it's one thing

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Speaker 1: to come up with the world's next hit invention, but

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Speaker 1: it's another thing to actually bring that invention to market.

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Speaker 1: So inventors are not always, you know, in the employee

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Speaker 1: of a big company, and so that's where Quirky was

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Speaker 1: really stepping in, and inventors could submit their work and

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Speaker 1: then they could possibly profit off of that. The royalties

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Speaker 1: were very small, like one and a half percent per sale.

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Speaker 1: But if you think about it, if you don't have

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Speaker 1: any way of actually producing your invention and bringing it

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Speaker 1: to market yourself, then it's not doing you any good

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Speaker 1: at all. So it's it was kind of like a

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Speaker 1: better than nothing kind of alternative. Kaufman's team raised around

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Speaker 1: two million dollars in various rounds of financing, and the

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Speaker 1: company did bring some products to market. In fact, several

432
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: products to market, including an automated home hub platform called Wink,

433
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 1: but not all the products were hits, and the costs

434
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: of manufacturing were such that Quirkies broad approach became unsustainable.

435
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: In early Quirky change strategies and rather than produced stuff itself,

436
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: it would seek out licensing partnerships with established big companies

437
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 1: like Ge and Amazon. But Quirky was still losing money,

438
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: and in the summer of the company was out of

439
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: cash and filed for bankruptcy. In that process, the company

440
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:32,679
Speaker 1: sold off its wink platform for fifteen million dollars to

441
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: another company called Flextronics. Flex Stars had actually been contracted

442
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 1: to manufacture the Wink products, so they just bought the

443
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 1: i P and a group of investors bought out the

444
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 1: rest of Quirky's assets, and a couple of years later,

445
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 1: Quirky returned with a slightly different approach. The new Quirky

446
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 1: doesn't get into the manufacturing side at all. Investors get

447
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: that one point five percent royalty on the wholesale price

448
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: of the product inmming from their invention, and that's paid

449
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: out once per quarter, so four times a year. Max

450
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:11,640
Speaker 1: Gina wald Horn, who had co founded a company called Evolation,

451
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: took over as president of the new organization, but according

452
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 1: to her LinkedIn profile, she stepped down in two thousand nineteen. However,

453
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: her Twitter bio still reads that she's president of Quirky.

454
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,479
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know who is in charge of Quirky

455
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 1: right now. I did a search and everything. I even

456
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: searched the Secretary of State website to try and find

457
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: out more information, but everything pointed back to Gina, who

458
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: appears to be pointed away from Quirky. She now serves

459
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: as the chief operating officer of the Sports Innovation Lab.

460
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: So I don't know who's in charge of Quirky at all,

461
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: or if Quirky is still an ongoing thing. The company

462
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 1: hasn't posted a video to its YouTube site since two

463
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, or I'm sorry two thousand eighteen. It hasn't

464
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: posted an Instagram posts since two thousand nineteen, so I

465
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: don't I don't know if it's currently active or not.

466
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: All the sources I found say it's active and the

467
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 1: website still up. You can still create an account there

468
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: and everything, so I don't know anyway. Next, let's talk

469
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: about a company that was aiming to shake up the

470
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 1: smartphone space a bit, and I'm talking about Essential Products,

471
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: a company co founded by the Android founder Andy Ruben

472
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen. This was before the allegations about

473
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: misconduct and sexual harassment, and worse about Reuben. It was

474
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: before all that became public, Reuben was seen as as

475
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: a kind of tech genius. The Android operating system had

476
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: become the most popular mobile os in the world, and

477
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: people were eager to see what Reuben would bring when

478
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: given the chance to head up the DESI line of

479
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: a new phone and not answer to Google. The company

480
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: worked largely in secret for two years before announcing the

481
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: Essential Phone in two thousand seventeen, and the design was

482
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: pretty attractive. The screen on the phone was more or

483
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: less bezel less, meaning the screen just covered the entire

484
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: front section of the phone phone except for a tiny

485
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: notch for the phone's camera. The company received a billion

486
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: dollars and investments from various big companies like Amazon and

487
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: Fox Con as well as other investor groups, and the

488
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: Essential Phone debuted two months late, and early reviews found

489
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: a few flaws. Uh there were bugs in the software

490
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: that made it difficult to use, the camera wasn't nearly

491
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: as good as what had been promised, and making matters

492
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: worse for the company was the launch of the iPhone ten,

493
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 1: which had a similar form factor without the issues of

494
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: the Essential Phone. So sales were disappointing. They were lackluster.

495
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: The company announced plans for a second phone, but that

496
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: second phone never materialized. The world heard about the allegations

497
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: against Reuben and the subsequent enormous golden parachute he received

498
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: from Google upon leaving the company, and that seriously overshadowed

499
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: anything that Essential was working on. The company folded in

500
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: early twenty Now, our next entry requires a bit of

501
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: an ancient history lesson, So scooch closer to the fire

502
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: and let old prospector Johnny tell you a tale of

503
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: m m O RPGs, or masterly multiplayer online or ale

504
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: playing games. Now, before there was a world of Warcraft,

505
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: which for some people is synonymous with m m O RPG,

506
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: there was a little fantasy game called EverQuest. Ever Quest

507
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: was the was not the first m m O RPG either.

508
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: I want to make that clear. That's a story for

509
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: a different time. Ever Quest is a game that technically

510
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: still running today. You can even play ever Quest for free.

511
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: But the thing I want to talk about was a

512
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: proposed spinoff of EverQuest called ever Quest Next. This would

513
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: have gone beyond an expansion pack or an iterative update

514
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: it was in some form of development, since at least

515
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: the ideas for ever Quest Next were really ambitious. The

516
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: world of EverQuest Next would change organically as players interacted

517
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: with it. So one example I heard is that imagine

518
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: that you and some other players clear out of space.

519
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: You go adventuring, you you clear out of space of monsters,

520
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: and you decide to decide to establish a town there,

521
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: and you you build houses and you've got a town.

522
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: But then you go off adventuring and you're gone for

523
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: a really long time, and there's no one left behind

524
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: at your town. You might come back and find that

525
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:57,960
Speaker 1: your town has been resettled by bandits or orcs or

526
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: something like that. So, in other words, there would be

527
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: emergent gameplay that would develop on its own, just based

528
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 1: on what was happening within the world. This is in

529
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: contrast with the way most online world's work, in which

530
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: game developers design scenarios for players to go through that

531
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: have a beginning, middle, and end that's already pre written

532
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: and there's no lasting impact on the online world itself.

533
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: Creating a changing online world is a tough path to follow.

534
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine if a game server were invaded by griefers,

535
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: and the griefers set about just trying to change the

536
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: online world in such a way that it becomes unwelcoming

537
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: to everyone else, for example. But it was a really

538
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: cool idea. Unfortunately, it was a cool idea that was

539
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: really hard to do, and the developers went back to

540
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: the drawing board at least once as technology continued to

541
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: improve while the game development languished in developmental hell, we

542
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: saw a very similar issue with the game Newcombe Forever,

543
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: which famously was considered vaporware for the better part, in fact,

544
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: more than a decade before it finally came out. And

545
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: part of the reason it was considered vaporware is that

546
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: the head of that project kept demanding the game be

547
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: rebuilt essentially from scratch in order to take advantage of

548
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: the latest in game engines and computational abilities. So the

549
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: team would be working on a build of the game,

550
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: then you would get a better game engine, and the

551
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: lead of the project would say, all right, well we

552
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: need to make this game for this new game engine.

553
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: Subscribe everything and start over. Meanwhile, other issues were complicating

554
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: matters for the EverQuest team. In two thousand fifteen, Sony,

555
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 1: which had been uh you know publishing ever Request under

556
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: Sony Online Entertainment spun off that division into a new

557
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: company with the name Daybreak Game Company, So now Daybreak

558
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: Game Company was in charge of EverQuest Next. A year later,

559
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: development on EverQuest Next came to an end. Reportedly, the

560
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: reason for stopping was because they had been working on

561
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 1: this property for several years and the end result just

562
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: wasn't fun to play, So rather than chase a moving target,

563
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: the company focused on other titles, including ever Request to

564
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: a more traditional M M O RPG one where the

565
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:25,399
Speaker 1: world doesn't change with player activity. When we come back,

566
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: we'll look at a few more random failures in the

567
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: tech world, but first let's take a quick break. The

568
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: next one is another story that has an addendum to it,

569
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 1: and we get to go back to two thousand twelve.

570
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: I mean, there's something about that year right Anyway, That's

571
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: when the world learned that Valve, the company famous for

572
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: the computer game online marketplace called Steam as well as

573
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,879
Speaker 1: for creating really notable games like Half Life Portal and

574
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: stuff like that, was going to release some hardware, and

575
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:09,759
Speaker 1: not just any hardware, but a dedicated game console that

576
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: would be able to play PC games. In fact, The

577
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: console was essentially a Linux based PC running a special

578
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: Linux distro or version called Steam OS. Valve partnered with

579
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: various companies to make it all come true, and therein

580
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 1: was part of the problem. It was kind of like

581
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: what happened with the old three D O game console

582
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: years earlier, and the result was that you had Valve

583
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: working with different PC companies and they were each producing

584
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: Steam machines, so that meant that different companies produced their

585
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: own version of the Steam Machine console. That meant there

586
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: was no unifying design or set of specs, so you

587
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: could look at two different Steam machines and find that

588
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:59,319
Speaker 1: they have wildly different features, really confused market. It also

589
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: didn't help the game developers were kind of thrown under

590
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: the bus for this. Even game developers that hoarded games

591
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: to run on Linux found that those games weren't necessarily

592
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: running so smoothly on Steam operating system. Sometimes they couldn't

593
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,240
Speaker 1: run at all. Many of the manufacturers chose to include

594
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: Windows as well as the Linux distro, or some of

595
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: them would just sub Windows in entirely and get rid

596
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: of the Steam operating system. That was not a great look.

597
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: The consoles did start to come out around two thou fourteen,

598
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: but they got pretty mediocre reviews. Uh, the Steam controller

599
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: had a little more love than the consoles did. By

600
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, most companies had just stopped making Steam machines.

601
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: They were pretty much extinct. But life, uh finds a way. Recently,

602
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: Valve announced it was producing a handheld gaming device capable

603
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: of playing PC games. And it's called the Steam Deck

604
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: and its supposed to be available starting this December one.

605
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 1: I do wonder how the semiconductor chip shortage is going

606
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: to affect the supply of the Steam Deck. Don't know

607
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: about that yet, but it is an interesting design. It

608
00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: kind of makes me think of the Nintendo Switch when

609
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 1: you're using Nintendo Switch in handheld mode. Uh. Just like

610
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Switch. You will be able to connect the

611
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: Steam Deck to a television using a dock or cables.

612
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: This one will come in a few different loadouts. The

613
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: prices range from three dollars for the base model up

614
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: to six for one that has greater storage capacity. The

615
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: Steam Deck will run on an updated version of the

616
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,919
Speaker 1: Steam operating system. The Linux users will also be able

617
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the normal Linux desktop if they

618
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: want to, and just navigate to other sources, not just Steam,

619
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 1: in order to get the content on these these handheld computers,

620
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: that's what they are. I'll likely do a full episode

621
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: about this later on, maybe when we get closer to launch.

622
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: But this is not the time to talk about unreleased tech.

623
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: It's time to talk about tech fails. And hopefully the

624
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: Steam Deck will not join that list, but it's too

625
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 1: early to say. So let's get to things that we

626
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: do know failed. Now. Some fails seem inevitable in retrospect

627
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: because and even casual examination of the technology reveals problems.

628
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 1: Let us talk for a moment about the Juicero Press,

629
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: which was a curig like device that could produce a

630
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: fresh glass of fruit or vegetable juice at the touch

631
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: of a button. So you would purchase the juice and pouches.

632
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,959
Speaker 1: You would insert the pouches into this machine, which would

633
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: scan the the pouch and then it would, you know,

634
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: you touch a button and the machine would squeeze the

635
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: bag empty and the contents of the pouch would go

636
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: into a glass beneath the machine. Or alternatively, if that

637
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: was too much work, you could just grab one of

638
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:14,760
Speaker 1: the juice pouches by hand hold it over a glass,

639
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: squeeze the bag yourself, and you would get the same result.

640
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: So the Juicero Press was a very expensive pouch squeezing machine.

641
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: So how expensive while at launch it costs seven hundred

642
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: dollars and on top of that, you would have to

643
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: subscribe to the company to get a selection of fruit

644
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 1: and vegetable juice pouches sent to you on a regular basis.

645
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:41,839
Speaker 1: You couldn't just put like fruit in there. I had

646
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: to be these pouches. But wait, it gets worse. So

647
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,279
Speaker 1: the Juicero Press did have a little more tech to

648
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: it than just a pouch squeezing mechanism. It had a

649
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: scanner and it could connect to WiFi, and you use

650
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 1: that scanner to scan the pouches that had a little

651
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 1: Q hard code on them, and you'd have to do

652
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: that before you could enjoy a glass of juice. It

653
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: wouldn't squeeze the pouch until you scanned it first. Now,

654
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: the company claimed the purpose of this feature was to

655
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: verify that the juice was fresh, because these juice pouches

656
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: had a shelf life of a little more than a week,

657
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: so you wanted to make sure you weren't drinking spoiled juice.

658
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: That's not a great idea. So the company said, the

659
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: Juice roe Press will verify that the pouch is actually

660
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 1: good to go before actually squeezing it into your glass.

661
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: But other people pointed out that this specific approach also

662
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 1: meant that the company could deny any other organization from

663
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: making compatible juice pouches. If the Juice eoe Press first

664
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: has to scan a code before it can squeeze out

665
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: some juice, then it could effectively be a form of

666
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: digital rights management. That QR code is DRM. It prevents

667
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 1: anyone else from making their own pouches, and that a

668
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: juicer row the monopoly or at least opened up the

669
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: opportunity for Juice Road to have like licensing deals so

670
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: no one can make pouches without the company's permission. By

671
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen, the company was calling it quits with

672
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 1: the press. They were calling the sold units and refunding customers,

673
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: and it became a symbol for the excesses of startup

674
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 1: culture in general and Silicon Valley in particular. I mean literally,

675
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: this machine was not necessary. You could just take those

676
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: pouches and squeeze them yourself and get the same, you

677
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: know result, And you could do that, you know, it

678
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: was far cheaper to just go and buy pouches of

679
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:43,879
Speaker 1: fruit juice. Like doing the subscription didn't make much sense.

680
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 1: I think the juice pouches were somewhere of it between

681
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: five dollars and eight dollars a pop. It's very expensive,

682
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: definitely access. Sticking with two seventeen, that's when Apple announced

683
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: a product called air Power, and it was meant to

684
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: be a new kind of wireless charger capable of charging

685
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:07,279
Speaker 1: up to three Apple devices simultaneously. So wireless charging was

686
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: already a thing, of course, using you know, inductive coils

687
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: to recharge nearby tech. Typically you nestle the tech on

688
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: a dock or you lay it down on a pad,

689
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 1: but Apple's goal was to create a charging pad large

690
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,319
Speaker 1: enough to have say, an iPhone and Apple Watch and

691
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:27,760
Speaker 1: some air pods all charging on it at the same time,

692
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: and all without having to find the specific you know,

693
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: hot spots on the pad where charging could occur. The

694
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: idea being like, you just lay your tech on this pad,

695
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 1: You're good to go. You don't have to fuss with it.

696
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: Apple unveiled this idea while revealing the iPhone eight and

697
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: the iPhone ten. Again we skip over nines, and they

698
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: said that the air Power would come to the market

699
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen. But then two thousand eighteen happened

700
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: and air Power didn't. In the spring of twenty nineteen,

701
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: tech journalists reported that Apple had quietly canceled the project.

702
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 1: So what happened Well, Reportedly, the engineers at Apple discovered

703
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: that their goal was harder to achieve than they first thought.

704
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: It was tough to create a working pad that didn't

705
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: have issues with interference or overheating and offered for you know,

706
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: charging across the entire pad so you didn't have to

707
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: worry about where things go. So after several failed attempts

708
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 1: to actually create a reliable and working and safe product,

709
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: the company pulled the plug, so to speak. Recently, mac

710
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: rumors reported that Apple is actually still investigating the possibility

711
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: of creating a wireless charging pads similar to what the

712
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: air Power was meant to be. And also, according to

713
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: those same rumors, Apple is also looking into alternatives for

714
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 1: charging pads, seeking out solutions that could allow for wireless

715
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: charging over greater distances. Now, typically that's pretty tricky. He

716
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:59,919
Speaker 1: usually requires you supply more power to the charging device

717
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: in order to reach these greater distances, and at some

718
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: point you reach a stage where it's just inefficient and

719
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: expensive to do that. Now, some fails don't look like

720
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: fails right away. They can stick around for a good

721
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: long while. And that's the case for our final one.

722
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 1: And it's a shame because this company made some really

723
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 1: neat stuff. And I'm talking about Ankie or on Key

724
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: a n k I, and I'm talking specifically about the

725
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: hardware company that specialized in robotics and AI in toys.

726
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: Founded in twenty ten. The company first got attention in

727
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,880
Speaker 1: when it unveiled the Onky drive product. And this was

728
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: a really cool idea. So imagine your typical toy race

729
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: car racetrack in the old days. You would have a

730
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: handheld controller with a trigger on it and that would

731
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: just let you, you know, control the speed of your

732
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 1: vehicle as you raced it along your designated lane in

733
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 1: a pre built track. You know, maybe there's two lanes,

734
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: but there's like a little divide or there, so your

735
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,839
Speaker 1: cars in one and your opponent's cars and the other. Well,

736
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: Anki took this idea and brought it into the future.

737
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: The tracks and Anchi drive are wider than your typical

738
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 1: toy race car track with no dividers, and there are

739
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 1: multiple lanes on these tracks. The toy cars had AI

740
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: incorporated into them and would connect to your smartphone via

741
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:27,399
Speaker 1: an app, and they could actually change lanes so they

742
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:31,399
Speaker 1: weren't stuck in one specific pathway on this track. You could,

743
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like in a highway. You could

744
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: change lanes that way. So you would build out a

745
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: race track using some pretty darn expensive pieces. Then you

746
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: would put your vehicles down the track to travel the

747
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: entire length of the track in AI mode. This would

748
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,720
Speaker 1: let the AI learn the tracks layout, kind of mapping

749
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:56,399
Speaker 1: it out. After doing that, you could race against an

750
00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 1: AI controlled car, so AI would control one vehicle and

751
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: you would control the other, or you could race against

752
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: friends who are controlling one or more other vehicles. In

753
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: addition to speed control, you would tilt your smartphone to

754
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,800
Speaker 1: the left or to the right to trigger the accelerometer.

755
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: That would cause your car to switch into a different lane,

756
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: so your toy car wasn't stuck in that same lane

757
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: all the way around. You could change lanes to pass

758
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:26,919
Speaker 1: someone else or to avoid an obstacle, and the app

759
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: also had a couple of features that let you use

760
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: quote unquote weapons against other players on the track. Uh,

761
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: if you got close enough to an opponent and you

762
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: activated a weapon, then a little signal would pass between

763
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: the two cars and it would cause your opponent to

764
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: maybe slow down or even spin out. It was pretty neat,

765
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: and if you wanted a set, you also needed a

766
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,399
Speaker 1: really nice, big place to set everything up because these

767
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: tracks took up a lot of space, and you would

768
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,799
Speaker 1: also be spending around a hundred fifty dollars just for

769
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:03,399
Speaker 1: the basic set. If you wanted any additional vehicles, each

770
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: one would cost you another fifty bucks, and I think

771
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:09,800
Speaker 1: it was sixty dollars to buy an expansion set of track,

772
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: So if you didn't have all you needed when you

773
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: were setting up at first, you would have to shall

774
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 1: out even more money. So yeah, it was a large

775
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: and very expensive toy, but it had some genuinely neat

776
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 1: features that I thought were pretty cool. A few years later,

777
00:48:26,719 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 1: and Ki released a robot called Cosmo Robot that kind

778
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:33,840
Speaker 1: of made me think a lot of Wally and Wally

779
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: to be clear, was a movie that came out eight

780
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: years before Cosmo launched. It looks a bit like a

781
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: little bulldozer. It's got a little digital screen for a

782
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:46,920
Speaker 1: face and very expressive digital eyes. You could interact with

783
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: Cosmo using an app, and you could play with it

784
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: as it moves around, you know, it picks up blocks

785
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: and stacks the blocks, or turns them around, or or

786
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: just explores its environment on its own. And the app

787
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:03,240
Speaker 1: included several games that you could play with or against Cosmo.

788
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: And I've watched videos of this thing. It's really super

789
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 1: duper cute. If you ever want to watch a video

790
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: of it, it's Cosmos spelled c o z m o

791
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: Aki released a different robot that had a very similar

792
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: form factor to Cosmo, called the Vector. Vector had some

793
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: virtual assistant features incorporated into it. It connected via WiFi

794
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 1: to home networks and used four microphones to pick up

795
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: sound and voice commands, and it also had an integrated

796
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:34,840
Speaker 1: camera it could help the robot navigated, also allowed it

797
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 1: to take photos. But in twenty nineteen, Andy found itself

798
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 1: running out of money. The company had been selling robotic

799
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: toy products for about six years. It raised nearly two

800
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: million dollars in funding, but the bottom line was that

801
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: despite having sold more than a million and a half

802
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: robot products, it just was not bringing in enough revenue

803
00:49:57,040 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: to stay in business. A company called Digital Dream Labs

804
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: acquired ankees I p including the Vector robot, which they

805
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: the Labs said it would continue to support and develop. Now,

806
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 1: because the Vector relies on the cloud for much of

807
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: its functionality, to get the most out of it, you

808
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: need a persistent Internet connection, and now you need a

809
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 1: monthly subscription to connect the Vector to cloud services. That

810
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 1: subscription is seven dollars per month or forty seven dollars

811
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: per year. That more than upset a few Vector owners

812
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 1: who had already spent a couple of hundred dollars just

813
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 1: buying the robot, and they were saying, why do I

814
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 1: have to keep paying to make the thing I bought

815
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 1: keep working? But the reality was that Ankie was gone,

816
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 1: that company no longer existed. Their servers were going to

817
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: be offline without some other companies stepping in. So no

818
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 1: matter what, the Vector was going to change. Right if

819
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: Ankie was just gone and the servers would be offline

820
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 1: and all that functionality would disappear. It does stink to

821
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: have purchased something and then have to pay an ongoing

822
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: fee to have it continue to work. But these are

823
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:11,359
Speaker 1: the risks we encounter in the world that is increasingly

824
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 1: dependent upon cloud based services. And that's just a few

825
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 1: examples of some big tech fails. I might do another

826
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:23,919
Speaker 1: episode about this and get another collection to include up here,

827
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:28,240
Speaker 1: just to illustrate how different pathways can lead to failure.

828
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 1: And again, it might be a poor design, it might

829
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 1: be a bad business plan. It maybe because there was

830
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:38,240
Speaker 1: some external change, maybe like a change in the market

831
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 1: that affects you. Or it could be that the original

832
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:45,359
Speaker 1: idea was just no good. Uh So keep any year out.

833
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,360
Speaker 1: I might do another one of these and play around

834
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: with some more failures and talk about those, because we

835
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: do learn a lot in the process. Hopefully when we

836
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 1: talk about these failures, no one like lost their shirt

837
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 1: or anything in the pros says and learned something along

838
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: the way. But you know, failure is no fun. I've

839
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: failed plenty of times and I've never enjoyed it, but

840
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: I can at least appreciate what I learned as a

841
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 1: process of failing. If you have thoughts about things I

842
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:20,759
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, do not

843
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: fail to send me a message. Do so on Twitter.

844
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is tech Stuff h S.

845
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech

846
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts

847
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

848
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.