Looking back at the 'FAILURES' of 2014: Tech and Gadgets Edition

The world of technology keeps seeing many ups and down every year. 2014 was a pretty good year for the technology industry, but there were some big time failures as well. So here's a list of the most embarrassing tech failures of 2014.

1. SONY PICTURES (THE INTERVIEW):

I hope you saw this and the next one coming, because if you didn't, were you living under a rock?This is a movie which became an ‘act of war’, and the epic part is that it is a Seth Rogen movie! This is a film that was a victim to one of the biggest ever cyber-attacks on a major movie studio and that was Sony! Sony Pictures was brought down and humiliated by a group called the Guardians of Peace or #GOP. They claimed to have stolen more than 100 Terabytes of data from the studio. The hackers soon began unveiling details from the Sony data, that was embarrassing not just to the studio, but also to some big names from the entertainment industry including Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Adam Sandler. The hack is also the reason of heavy diplomatic tussle between the USA and North Korea.

2. ICLOUD HACK:

Another major cyber breach took place at Apple’s trusted iCloud storage. Thousands of private and intimate photos of celebrities were leaked online. This caused quite a tense situation around the world and put Apple in an extremely awkward spot. Apple later confirmed that the hackers responsible for the leak had obtained the images using a “very targeted attack” on account information, such as passwords, rather than any specific security vulnerability in the iCloud service itself.

3. UBER:

The app based cab service faced one PR disaster in India. Multiple complaints of its driver harassing the passengers or sexually assaulting them, a highly publicized rape case led the company to temporarily cease its operations in many parts of the country. To make matters worse, there were also revelations that Uber was spying on journalists who were being criticizing the company. Uber also tried to take down its competition by ordering about 6000 rides and then canceling them. Even the drivers reported that they were exploited by the company. Guess for its new year resolution, Uber’s only resolution should be: Don’t be evil.

4. #Bendgate:

The iPhone 6 Plus soon became the butt of all jokes following reports of its bendability. Users found that the new device was easy to bend, and it quickly started trending on social media with the tag “#Bendgate”. There is an easy fix for the issue, and that is to use the phone with a protective case, but come on! That thing bends?

5. AMAZON FIRE PHONE:

Amazon really flopped hard on this one. There was a lot of buzz before the launch of the device, but it failed to capture commercial appeal, just because it wasn't worth it. The device had a few features like 3D display that could have been its defining element but

turned out to be really gimmicky. That coupled with below average battery performance, and low app availability led to low sales and forced the company to slash prices rapidly. Some reviewers even called it more of a prototype than a real device.

6. MH370:

Irony and jokes apart, this is a serious one... the only one incident that involves death, on a massive scale. March 8, 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 (Boeing 777) DISAPPEARED (vanished!!!), leaving behind many questions and extremely limited answers. No one would have thought that in the age of satellites and modern communication equipments, a plane can just disappear from the radar screens. The disappearance also led to several conspiracy theories. The last signal from the aircraft was broadcasted when it was over South China sea. There was a massive multinational effort to locate the lost plane, but it yielded no results. The search was the largest and most expensive in aviation history. There was also added bad news for Malaysian Airlines whose other plane, MH 17 was shot down pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine using surface to air missiles.


7. BLACKBERRY:

The company that was identified as one of the pioneers of the smartphone market has rapidly lost market share ever since the advent of the iPhone and Android ecosystems. Seeing that it was not going to carve out a place for itself in the brutal touch screen device market, the company decided to go back to its roots. The first device in this new attempt by the company was the Passport. Though the company tried to bring innovations into the device like a keyboard that also acts as a touchpad and a square display, it hasn’t managed to entice a lot of folks. This ultra wide device cannot be used with one hand and takes its own sweet time to focus while taking photos. The second device from the company called the Classic, might help bring back the experience that BlackBerry users were used to and get the company out of these times of peril.


8. MICROSOFT XBOX KINECT 2.0:

Seems like consumers are not ready for motion capture or spending extra for a hands-free gaming experience. Microsoft bet big money on the Kinect 2.0 and brought it in the market with improved functionalities last yeat. Microsoft was selling Kinect bundled with the Xbox One. Sales were slow just because the Xbox was $100 more expensive than the PS4, and so Microsoft decided to unbundle the Kinect and sold Xbox One without it and cut $100 off the price. The result: Microsoft’s console easily beat Sony’s PlayStation in holiday sales. Though it is not the end of the Kinect as of yet. As the motion-based games and technology gets better, more folks will get comfortable to give the boot to the good old controllers and get on the Kinect bandwagon. It’s just a matter of time.