13 Most EMBARRASSING Tech Fails of all time.

Mrwhosetheboss

Embarrassing tech fails, from Mcdonalds, to Tesla, to the global IT crisis...it gets bad.

Transcript

00:00Prepare yourself for 13 of the most embarrassing tech fails of all time, from the keyboard

00:04with 113 OLED displays inside of it, to PlayStation's most expensive mistake ever in history, to

00:10literal global apocalypse.

00:13Starting with McDonald's, who in one of the weirdest collabs of all time, went into

00:17partnership with IBM in 2021 to run a trial of an AI-assisted voice ordering system at

00:22about 100 of their drive-thrus.

00:24Guess what happened when TikTok got their hands on it?

00:26Giving orders to the wrong cars?

00:28Multiplying items?

00:29And I'm not talking someone walking away with a single extra chicken nugget.

00:33People were leaving with hundreds of dollars worth of nuggets.

00:36And I think the most embarrassing, and yet at the same time also the most, we probably

00:39should have seen this coming, error?

00:41Giving people ridiculous combinations of products that any human would realise make no sense

00:46at all.

00:47Like ice cream with ketchup and butter, or, I really wish I was joking, ice cream with

00:51bacon on top.

00:52But hey, at least that means the McDonald's ice cream machine was actually working for

00:56once.

00:57McDonald's is still having the audacity to correct the pronunciation of its customers.

01:01And that b***h says it's caramel.

01:04Like, huh?

01:05So yeah, McDonald's basically had to end the trial ASAP, but we got some pretty good

01:09laughs out of it.

01:10A pretty harmless 1 out of 10 fail.

01:12The same can't be said for number 12 though.

01:15Because in 2005, an unknown Russian design company called Art Lebedev released a series

01:20of concept images for a revolutionary new type of keyboard.

01:23A keyboard called the Optimus Maximus, which, yeah, that's a pretty sick name, where each

01:27individual key has its own tiny display.

01:30And that's kind of amazing because it means every single key can be whatever you want

01:34it to be.

01:35So let's say I get a little board of the normal QWERTY keyboard layout, bam, and it's

01:39kind of mind-frying just the power that this gives you.

01:42Every single key can be a letter, a number, a direct shortcut to a Photoshop tool, or

01:47your ultimate move in League.

01:48It's kind of like the MacBook Touch Bar, but useful.

01:53You could change your whole keyboard's language with one press.

01:55And there's even a programmable side panel which could allow you to fast swap between

01:59applications.

02:00Now you might be thinking, in 2005?

02:03Surely that kind of miniaturised LCD display technology just wasn't there at the time.

02:07And you would be right.

02:09This was meant to be a concept.

02:11But people just got so excited by it that Lebedev decided, this is our chance to do

02:14something big.

02:15We actually have to make this thing.

02:17They quickly realised that LCD displays at the time were too dim for what they wanted

02:21to do.

02:22So they decided to go with OLED, tech that wasn't really a big thing yet in 2005, especially

02:26in such a tiny form.

02:28Which means that as well as having to make this monster of a keyboard, they also ended

02:32up having to create their own proprietary miniature OLED display technology.

02:36Just so they could fit one of them under each one of these transparent keys, which they

02:39did by working with a Taiwanese supplier called iDisplay.

02:42And somehow, after all of that, they actually managed to ship a working product in 2008.

02:48Sadly, they got too caught up in the hype themselves.

02:51This company became so obsessed with achieving this goal of 113 OLED displays that they forgot

02:56to actually make the typing experience good.

02:58These keys have such high resistance that you're just tired after like a minute of

03:01using it.

03:02Oh yeah, and the thing was priced at $1500 when it launched.

03:05So only a very small fraction of the people who first expressed interest actually followed

03:10through and bought the thing.

03:11I'm only going to give this a 2 out of 10 fail though, because there was a silver lining.

03:15Remember iDisplay?

03:16Well, they put so much time and effort into helping to create this mini under-keyboard

03:20OLED tech that they decided to run with it anyway.

03:23And they were eventually purchased by Elgato, which is what led to the Elgato Stream Deck,

03:27which even today is one of the must-have gadgets for any streamer.

03:31But not every story has a happy ending.

03:34Some of them have a nappy ending.

03:36This is Paul and Rachel Barron, who, after being completely unable to find a washable

03:41swim nappy for their son that was actually good and actually fit, decided to make their

03:46own.

03:47They started a company called Bow & Bell Littles, selling them on Amazon, and very

03:50quickly hit $1 million in sales.

03:52These guys were killing it.

03:53They were appearing on shows, they were being profiled by Forbes.

03:56But four years ago, possibly the absolute worst thing that could have happened, happened.

04:01Amazon, you know, the nearly $2 trillion technology company, sent one customer a used diaper.

04:07And you bet that customer left a review.

04:09The diaper arrived used and was covered in poop stains.

04:12Nothing could have been more disgusting.

04:14These were not small stains either.

04:16I was extremely grossed out.

04:18Now, this sticky situation was nothing to do with the Barrons.

04:21This happened because the person at Amazon, responsible for checking returned products

04:25before sending them out to new customers, did a, well, a pants job.

04:29But the worst part of this is, after the Barrons saw this review, and they scurried to tell

04:33Amazon that it wasn't their fault, that it could very heavily damage their business,

04:37and to take it down, Amazon refused.

04:40And the Barrons were right.

04:41This one review did completely tank their business.

04:44Four years later, they're now $600,000 in debt, including a loan that has their house

04:49up as collateral.

04:50It's only after Bloomberg published an article about the whole debacle that Amazon finally

04:54agreed to take the review down.

04:55But the damage was already done.

04:57So four out of ten fail.

04:59Made worse by the fact that it wasn't even these guys' fault.

05:02So if you ever find yourself in the market for a washable swim nappy, now you know where

05:07to go.

05:08Just maybe don't return it after you've used it.

05:11Okay, we've seen all sorts of laptops over the years.

05:14Super high-end gaming laptops, super affordable $400 laptops.

05:17But what on earth does a $100 laptop look like?

05:20Well, in 2005, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, formed One Laptop

05:26Per Child, a non-profit whose goal was to transform education in the developing world

05:30by creating and distributing as many devices as possible to children in schools.

05:35And the device that was going to change children's lives?

05:38The XO.

05:39A quirky little green plastic laptop designed to be produced as cheaply as possible while

05:43still giving disadvantaged kids access to a computer.

05:46And this thing had a lot of thoughtful features packed into it for its tiny cost.

05:50Especially considering this was 2005.

05:52A hand crank that would allow children to power their device even if they didn't have

05:55access to an electrical outlet.

05:57Which means that the device ran on a tiny fraction of the power of probably whatever

06:01you're watching this on.

06:02And that was crucial to allow kids to use it outside of school.

06:05The screen could flip around to turn it into an e-reader.

06:08The thing was made of shock-absorbing plastic and rubber, a feature that Negroponte clearly

06:12very much enjoyed showing off.

06:14A rubberized, spill-proof keyboard, as well as all the ports being covered by the Wi-Fi

06:18antenna when closed.

06:19All with a logo in various colors so that kids could tell their laptops apart.

06:24And the absolute core of the whole thing was that the device ran on a Linux-based operating

06:27system, giving kids total access to the computer.

06:31The organization actually managed to gather so much steam that they were even offered

06:34free macOS licenses by Steve Jobs himself.

06:38Which… that never happens.

06:40But Negroponte turned them down just to keep the system as open as possible.

06:45All this for only $100.

06:47And they didn't even want to stop there.

06:49We really believe that we can make literally hundreds of millions of these machines available

06:53to children around the world, Negroponte promised, and it's not just $100, it's going to

06:58go lower.

06:59If you're thinking this is all too good to be true, good instincts.

07:02And people started to pick up on this when the crank broke off at the live demo.

07:06Not a great start.

07:08And by the time the laptop actually came out, a lot of these promises had just mysteriously

07:12went away.

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