Ipod Prediction Tops T3's List Of Gadget Gaffes

[peter991]

iPod prediction tops T3's list of gadget gaffes

WHEN Sir Alan Sugar claimed the iPod would be dead within a year, he had no idea that he had got it wrong 174 million times.

Sir Alan is featured in a new list of the worst technology predictions of all time.

Should he be worried about his lack of foresight, he can reassure himself that he is among good company, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

The list was compiled by gadget magazine T3 and reveals how industry leaders have written off many successful inventions.

Sir Alan made his prediction about the iPod in an interview in February 2005.

"Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput," he said.

Since then, the music player has become one of the best-selling gadgets of all time with makers Apple selling 174 million units.

Bill Gates, meanwhile, enters the top 10 twice.

His first alleged gaffe came in 1981 when he said no personal computer would ever need to have more than 640KB of memory — a statement that he later denied making.

In 2004, he said spam email "would be solved" in two years.

Movie mogul Darryl Zanuck made the magazine's list for his 1946 claim that TV wouldn't last because "people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box."

Similarly misguided was Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp, who in 1977 said there was no need for a computer in the home.

Vacuum cleaner executive Alex Lewyt predicted in the 1950s that nuclear-powered hoovers were just ten years away.

And in 1933, there would apparently never be a bigger plane than the brand-new 10-seater Boeing 237, according to one company engineer.

The postal service can account for two more dodgy declarations – in 1878, the UK Post Office chief engineer William Preece said the telephone would never take off since the country already had so many messenger boys.

Just over 80 years later, US postmaster general Arthur Summerfield said the world was standing "on the threshold of rocketmail".

And the final entry in T3's list was this corker from 1883 — "X-rays will prove to be a hoax" according to Lord Kelvin, then-president of the Royal Society.

Peter