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Looking back

Roberto Saracco July 28, 2022 Blog 155 Views

Do you remember the 3D television? It was flagged as the innovation that would have changed television forever. It just faded away … Image credit: The museum of Failures

I started this blog in 2009 (at that time I was at the Future Centre of Telecom Italia) and I remember 3 years later I engaged a student to look back on those posts to see how many of the innovations that were announced, and that I reported, did actually make to the market and for those that disappeared to find out the “whys”.It was for a theses on innovation and we agreed that a look at what went wrong was as informative as looking at what turned out to be a success. Of course, one of the advantage at looking at failures was that we had much more material to consider.

I am still using part of that study in my teaching on impact of innovation.

All of that came back to my mind when I stumbled on the Museum of Failures. You can browse the collection of the Museum here.

I am posting this because I found interesting to go back in time and see quite a number of products that I either tried (like the Apple Newton -do you remember it? the Philips Video 2000 – I got really close to buy it! the Sony Betamax – I opted for the VHS, the Iridium – I worked on it …).

I chose as picture the 3D television. I remember the hype around it but in spite of the strong advertisement push it just faded away.

Take a look down memory lane.

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About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.

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