Tech Snafus

For every Usain Bolt there has to be a Dwain Chambers. For every Scarlett Johansson there will always be a Sarah Jessica Parker. For every Lord of the Rings there must always be a Twilight… and ad on infinitum.

In every avenue of human life the success stories stand – for a time – side by side with the failures; their weird, deformed, inadequate cousins which will gamely exist for a brief period before going back to the drawing board or simply fading into obscurity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in today’s technology market.

The past year’s had its massive success stories; Instagram, Snapchat, ebooks and the ever-growing Facebook… but then there’ve been the utterly epic fails…

Some of these have been easy enough to remedy – howls of protest began in earnest when Microsoft revealed a Windows 8 that lacked that certain something: the iconic Windows Start button. It wasn’t too long before it was back where it belonged.

But there have also been the graver failings, the real company-destroying ball-dropping episodes.

Take Zynga for example. The social media-based games developer shot straight up to the big leagues thanks to the success of the Farmville series, but its failure to release a title of similar note over the last year has resulted in a massive downscaling of the company’s operations, with over 500 jobs cut. We truly do feel for those who now find themselves jobless, but it is nice to think we might not be getting quite so many annoying game invitation requests on Facebook any more…

Elsewhere however, online gaming is thriving particularly in the casino sector with sites like WinaGames Australia offering online pokies, table games and even video poker with a variety of sign-up bonuses.

Then there are the more fundamental failures, the present day Betamax episodes… 3D shopping anyone? Numerous online retailers have tried to implement technology which allows users to see digital versions of themselves decked out in the clothes they’re browsing. The main problem is that the execution of this has generally been clunky to say the least, with shoppers often feeling none the wiser as to how the garment would look on an actual human frame.

And what about QR codes?

Sure, they’re a lovely idea on paper, but very few of us actually seem to know exactly how to use them!

Even those of us who have QR code scanner apps for our phones can sometimes struggle, with scanner programs often affected heavily by factors such as lighting.

Looking to the future, the Xbox One already seems to be facing an uphill PR battle, with many gaming enthusiasts having reacted negatively to Microsoft’s heavy focus on video technology during the console’s unveiling – gamers want games, darn it!