Gadgets That Too Soon

14 centre spread centre spread 15 DECEMBER 07-13, 2014 DECEMBER 07-13, 2014 APPLE NEWTON SEGA GAME GEAR It was a personal This 8-bit handheld game console was released digital assistant (PDA) GADGETS in response to Nintendo's Game Boy. It before palm and a was held lengthwise at the sides tablet before the iPad. (preventing the cramping of By modern standards, THAT hands) and had a backlit, colour it was pretty basic — it LCD screen, allowing for clearer could take notes, store and more vibrant visuals. It was ATARI LYNX contacts, and manage also praised for its processing Atari’s little handheld sported the rst colour LCD, calendars. It had a power. Its unique game library before Sega’s Game Gear, and was cheaper with stylus, and could even and price point gave it an better battery life in comparison. It ultimately lost translate handwriting edge over its competitors the game to Nintendo. It was nearly twice the into text. It could also DIED size of Game Boy's postage stamp screen be used to send a fax and oered much better graphics TOO SOON 3DO INTERACTIVE MULTIPLAYER Manufactured by Panasonic, Sanyo and GoldStar, 3DO was SEGA DREAMCAST the rst game system to use CDs for content delivery. The It was superior to most other increase in data storage led to syst ems at the time with built-in better 3D graphics. Also, the modem for Internet support and gaming machine was one of the online play as well as a controller rst entries in the 32-bit that allowed second-screen gaming. gaming era and was the pioneer It was the rst 128-bit console and in incorporating Dolby surround sold 500,000 units in its rst two sound in a gaming console. The 3DO game weeks. Businessweek rated it as one library featured many ports from PC games of the best products of 1999. But, such as Myst, Need for Speed and Road Rash the launch of Sony’s PlayStation 2 ended its dream run Think technology and think change. COMMODORE But some gadgets, oering technology much AMIGA ahead of their time, fail ed to woo consumers. At a time when Macs were unexpandable, single Poor marketing, lack of support or simply tasking, monochromatic COMPAQ IPAQ bad timing, they have had a short life span. boxes and PCs were This “pocket PC” was more functional dominated by the command than the rst smartphone. Here's a look at a few such gadgets: line, Amiga introduced an Targeted at execs MICROSOFT expandable computer with on the go, its ZUNE dedicated graphics and hardware It was both a music- audio co-processors that allowed speedy playing device like the was able to display colour access to all iPod and an iTunes-like graphics, had stereo audio, appointments and service that allowed a built-in command line on contacts and people to load their top of a windows-based oered an Zune players with music. GUI, and preemptive infrared port for SONY MINI DISC Many tech bus claim It was a transition product between CDs and multitasking transferring les that the second MP3 players. CDs till then were just for between iPAQ users generation of the device listening, not recording. But, Mini Disc as well as oine had software that was could do everything — the magneto- email browsing. It better than anything optical disc-based device could store 74 also had MP3/WMA running on iOS. But it minutes of digitized audio data. However, its playback and voice nally lost the battle to cost ($750) couldn’t lure many away from cassettes recording Apple and CDs and the launch of MP3 sounded its death knell Source: Gizmodo India, news reports, Wikipedia SOURCE: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/45398696.cms.

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