By Jennifer Hooker, IEN Staff
August 4, 2008—With the fast-paced world of technology, it’s not uncommon to find bugs in products or services offered by certain companies. But then there are the true fiascos that leave us saying “What were they thinking?!” Remember Windows Vista, exploding laptop batteries, and the lovely brick known as the Microsoft Zune?
This past week saw a few train wrecks most notably:
1. Cuil. Besides being plagued with an unfortunate name (pronounced “cool”) this search engine, which was founded by former Google employees promised to be one of the most comprehensive methods for searching the Web. According to an MSNBC report, Cuil searched three times as many Web pages as Google, and 10 times as many as MSN.
Unfortunately, shortly after its debut, the Associated Press reported that users received the following message after typing a search request, “No results because of high load.” We were also disappointed by the results we found when searching for Apple iPhone3G 16 GB, as Cuil mostly listed spam sites and not Apple’s site.
2. Last Monday, the CBS Evening News broadcasted for the first time in high definition, and while the picture was crystal clear, Katie Couric looked like a character in a silent film since audio problems struck the airwaves. According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine Washington DC, Chattanooga, Tenn., the New York area, and other markets had no sound for the first half of the broadcast and frequently switched back and forth from high-def to standard definition until the problem was fixed at the second half of the broadcast. Though it was too little too late for Couric who proudly announced that it was the first HD broadcast, when she was actually in standard def. Oops!
3. Glitches were also present in the airline industry last week, as baggage conveyors came to a halt at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport causing delays up to 90 minutes for American Airlines flights. USA Today reported that the malfunction lead to only 10% to 20% of luggage getting onboard, but, the airline was kind enough to waive that baggage fee.
4. Apple’s MobileMe internet service, which offers email and data synchronization, launched back on July 17…for some people. The $99 service has since experienced several outages that affected 20,000 users, according to Wired blog Gadget Lab. Apple claimed that they fully restored the service on July 29, but the following day, forums were still filled with users who were singing a different tune.
5. Swedish cell phone manufacturer, Neonode recalled its N2 touchscreen handset due to “reception problems.” Tech blog, Crave, reported that the company claims to have fixed the problem, but it must be little consolation to the users who have to constantly say, “Can you hear me now?”
We find that many of these blunders could have been prevented if the products and services weren’t rushed to market before they were ready. If companies would just realize that consumers not only want their products fast, but functioning, technology would probably be way ahead of where it is now. Understandably, manufacturers don’t want to be left behind in the race to get the hottest technology out to the public, but they probably waste more resources to repair what should have been right to begin with. Imagine what those engineers and scientists could do if they didn’t have to clean up messes.
Posted by Jennifer Hooker at 08/04/2008 10:14:02 AM |
