33 Things That Looked Like The Next Big Thing But Were Very Quickly Forgotten

You can’t always guess what the future will hold. But you can bet your bottom dollar on one thing—there’s bound to be a whole bunch of tech breakthroughs that seemed incredibly important at the time only to have been left by the wayside.

Our team here at Bored Panda has spelunked into the darkest corners of the net to find you some of these tech innovations that seemed so amazing just a handful of years ago but which sound bizarre, hilarious, or even useless now. Check them out below and, as you scroll down, upvote the pics that you liked the most. Got a strong sense of nostalgia? We’d love to hear all about the tech you remember the most fondly, so be sure to write us a comment or two with your thoughts.

Bored Panda chatted about the future of technology and work with Aaron Genest, an expert on labor in the tech and innovation industry. Aaron, who is an Applications Engineering Manager for Siemens Software and the President of SaskTech, said that making accurate predictions about what tech and devices will be long-lived and stand the test of time is a very difficult thing to do. Difficult... but not impossible.

"I'd argue that most people underestimate the timelines necessary to produce the technological goods on which we rely and the investment made to allow them to exist. By looking 'upstream' in that investment space, we can have a pretty good idea of what whole industries are betting on," he said. "For instance, it takes almost two years to develop and produce a computer chip and get it to market for a phone, and five years to get something into a new kind of car. So if we want to have a sense for what, for instance, the gadgets in our cars will look like in 2026, we just need to look at what the car manufacturers are asking their suppliers to design today."

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The Motorola Razr. Still The Coolest Cell Phone To Be Produced

Final score:

344points

33 Things That Looked Like The Next Big Thing But Were Very Quickly Forgotten

The Motorola Razr. Still The Coolest Cell Phone To Be Produced

See-Through Electronics

Batteries That Let You Check How Much Energy Was Left

The GE Alarm Clock That Everyone Seemed To Have

TVs With A VHS Player Built Into Them

Phones With Internet On Them In The First Place

Cassette Tape That Let You Connect Your iPod To Your Car Stereo

Digital Mp3 Players With These Songs

Remember When Laptops Used To Have That Little Rubber Cl!t For A Mouse?

Portable DVD Players

Watches That Lit Up Blue

Netflix's DVD Service

Those Backwards Seats In Station Wagons

Movies On An iPod With A 2-Inch Screen

That Singing Fish

Cd Players That Held Multiple Cds At Once

CD Players With 45-Second Skip Protection

Old School PC Microphones

Pagers Are Now Collecting Dust

Thick Big Screen TVs Only Rich Kids Had

Car Phones

Robot Dogs

Speakers That Attached To The Monitor

A DVD Or VHS Player In A Car

Digital Cable And Being Able To Watch A Ton Of Useless Channels

These iPhone Apps Where You Drank Fake Beer

Can I Interest You In A Sidekick II With Aol Messenger?

Hit Clips

A TV With A DVD Player In It

Paper Toss iPhone Game

Fake Lighter Phone Apps

Having The Option And The Ability To Update Your Facebook From A Text Message

The Original Ipod And The Million Buttons It Had

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