Today I woke up wanting to examine the future and review the past. Now it was time to analyze those predictions of success that were not fulfilled. But, I want to make a caveat. That a technology or technological product has not achieved success at a certain time, nor should it lead us to discard them. The consumer may not be mature to accept it, or the appropriate manufacturing means do not exist. Even if that technology or product never flourishes, they can be the starting point for others who do.
The unfulfilled wish list
The year of Linux on the desktop
I put it, before some infiltrator does it in the comment form and war breaks out.
At first many linuxers disagreed with the idea of a graphical interface. They even told the creator of KDE that if he wanted graphics he should buy a Mac. Then Gnome, XFCE and all the others appeared.
The reasons why more than 2% of the market was never achieved? First of all, lMicrosoft's smart strategy to turn a blind eye to the piracy of home users and to use its marketing force to impose it on companies, public bodies and academic institutions.
By the time Linux had a reasonably usable desktop for home users, most had no practical reason to switch operating systems.
To this must be added the huge dispersion of efforts in different desktop projects and applications and to some developers who create know better than users what they need.
Converged hardware
Many interesting convergence projects via software. The KDE and PinePhone developers have some successes on that topic.
However, the idea of convergent hardware (terminals that behave like smartphones or computers depending on whether or not they are connected to a monitor and keyboard) seems to it does not arouse the same interest as the past.
Ubuntu, after failing to get funding to build its own hybrid team, and not having much success working with third-party vendors, decided to throw in the towel. And large companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google do not continue betting on the issue.
In my opinion, the failure of converged hardware is due to it is too expensive for the user. It's much cheaper have the content in the cloud and use it on your computer, tablet, smart TV or smartphone as needed.
The use of augmented reality
Back in 2010 the specialists assured that lto augmented reality (layers of virtual content that overlap and interact with the real world) sIt was a technology that we would have to live with on a daily basis. Except for the fleeting success of Pokemon Go and some absurdly expensive models of glasses, that did not occur,
I think this is because hehe technology is not mature enough to replace alternatives.
Cryptocurrencies replacing paper money
Since the advent of Bitcoin, the Blockchain technology has been proposed as the solution to everything, except for baldness. The reality is that, although there are many interesting projects, none have been commercially profitable or achieved massive status.
With regard to cryptocurrencies, there is a lot to say in their favor, but it is illusory to think that governments are going to renounce control of the volume of circulating currency to hand it over to an algorithm. And, if you have parents or grandparents who still don't trust the ATM, imagine what it would be like convince them to collect the pension in Bitcoins.
Driverless vehicles
I can't speak for the other shortsighted, but if I could make just one tech-related wish, it would be have a self-driving vehicle. It would save me from the insufferable public transport in Buenos Aires and I wouldn't have to put up with the unbearable political talk of the taxi drivers. Unfortunately I will have to keep walking for a long time.
Although they reported great progress on this topic (and most of the accidents produced in this type of vehicle seem to be due to human fault) still nor is it a mature enough technology to let it run without human supervision on the streets.