Technological breakthrough News headline that went nowhere?

[Maximum7]

For those of you old enough to remember; was there ever a headline in the news touting a seemingly significant technological breakthrough or invention that then hit a dead end and went nowhere?

Anything from 1990-2015 is a good range. The closer to 1990 the better

[Yuli Ban]

For those of you old enough to remember; was there ever a headline in the news touting a seemingly significant technological breakthrough or invention that then hit a dead end and went nowhere?

Anything from 1990-2015 is a good range. The closer to 1990 the better

On the first iteration of the FutureTimeline forums no less (the 2009-2011 version), something I committed to memory because of how cool it sounded:
https://futurismic.com/2009/04/20/i-thi ... e-i-tweet/

Early on the afternoon of April 1, Adam Wilson posted a message to Twitter. But instead of using his hands to type, the University of Wisconsin biomedical engineer used his brain. “USING EEG TO SEND TWEET,” he thought.

The research, which could provide a new means of communication for people locked in their own skulls by paralysis or other problems, is built on the BCI2000, a software tool pioneered by Justin Williams, head of the University of Wisconsin’s Neural Interfaces lab, and Wadsworth Center neural injury specialist Gerwin Schalk, which translates thought-induced changes in a scalp’s electrical fields to control an on-screen cursor.

Although it’s in wide use in labs, notes WIRED, “its communications applications have been largely restricted to messages appearing on a nearby screen.

"Texting by thinking" has yet to come to fruition, despite the technology largely being there, simply because of how cumbersome current noninvasive BCIs are

But EEGs were never going to lead that vanguard. Still, for 2009, it sounds futuristic as heck, doesn't it? Makes you think "Oh man in 10 years, everyone will be doing this!"

[Yuli Ban]

Oh, and another thing, from the version of the forums we're more familiar with, from very early on:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/data-storage- ... tical-disc

A novel disc the size of a DVD can hold more than 1 million gigabits—roughly as much as is transmitted per second over the entire world’s Internet—by storing data in three dimensions as opposed to two, a new study finds.

Optical discs such as CDs and DVDs encode data using a series of microscopic pits. These pits, and the islands between them, together represent the 0s and 1s of binary code that computers use to symbolize information. CD, DVD, and Blu-ray players use lasers to read the data encoded in these discs.

I was fascinated by this news, from around 2014, and yet nothing came of it.
And similarly, Archival Discs
I remember there was one user in the early FTforums who was really committed to this one for some reason. In retrospect, I do wish these took off more than they did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archival_Disc
https://www.engadget.com/2014-03-10-son ... -disc.html

Aiming to offer a long-term storage option in disc form, Sony and Panasonic have announced the new Archival Disc format that will store between 300GB and 1TB per disc. The companies are bigging up the non-HDD form factor for its hardiness to temperature and humidity.

Read More: https://www.engadget.com/2014-03-10-son ... -disc.html

To be fair, Archival Discs actually DID release and get commercialized; they just failed because streaming and the Cloud took so much precedence.
Nowadays we're starting to secondguess the extensive focus on digital over physical, but at the time, ADs were seen as too niche.
(Considering how huge video games have gotten, ADs seem like the perfect step over blu-rays if you want physical games that are still hundreds of gigabytes in size)


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Now that I think about it, a lot of the stuff that triggered my first "Yuli Banularity" back in 2014 just flat out didn't go anywhere

Remember HP's The Machine?
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing ... -computer/

What is The Machine?
Two important components of The Machine are a new type of memory HP calls “memristors,” as well as a new data transfer system that uses silicon photonics. Memristors are a highly dense and fast memory type. An alternative to copper wire, silicon photonics will send data via lasers, which, according to HP, are about a quarter of the diameter of human hair. Switching to photonics in data centers would increase data transfers to about 160 petabytes in 250 nanoseconds—while using much less energy.

Or how about this nanomotor, which is actually what triggered me to even make my 2015 Predictions Thread because I thought we'd solved the last hurdle towards creating usable diamonoid nanobots. Also 2014:


Yet it seems nothing came of this



And then there was this little reported little known update to ASIMO that I kept regularly following to no news for years:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/honda-using-e ... r-research

During the Fukushima crisis in Japan, the lack of Japanese robots that were available to help out was notable. There was some question as to why Honda didn’t just send ASIMO (arguably one of the most sophisticated and capable humanoid robots in existence) to help out. The simple answer is that ASIMO wouldn’t be able to handle that kind (or any kind) of extreme environment. The robot was never intended to be a disaster mitigation robot; it was designed to work in offices, specifically the kind of offices that have not experienced an earthquake, explosion, alien invasion, sharknado, or other messy event. Honda is clearly aware of ASIMO’s limitations in tackling these kinds of situations, and that’s probably why (as we reported two years ago) the company has been developing a new version of ASIMO that is specifically designed for disasters.

At the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) this week, Honda engineers presented a pair of papers on research they’re doing with disaster-response humanoid robots. The researchers report that they’ve been focused on complex tasks such as gait transitions and ladder climbing. It was nice seeing that their ASIMO-based experimental humanoid is already doing some very impressive things.

At the tail end of your requested spectrum (no pun intended considering the site name), in 2015
Nothing came of this; Honda just gave up ASIMO altogether

It's interesting to see all the things from 2013-2015 that got me so high on futurology that did or didn't make it. Deep learning, we all expected to go places; I hoped that the 2020s would see a more acrobatic and physically capable robots leading into widespread commercialization of humanoid servants/companions in the 2030s, and I hoped driverless cars would go much further as well. I hoped for drone shows. I hoped solar, wind, nuclear, and whatnot would take off and suck away from fossil fuels (nuclear's been the most laggy, but that's just because of how expensive it is to build).

Yet at the same time, I thought that D-Wave's Quantum Computer was worthwhile in any way
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27264552
(I mean it... kind of is one? But it's not the kind we want)