TECH

In Memoriam: The Tech That Died in 2018

A bongo enthusiast once said, "time is a flat circle," which is a pretentious way of saying history repeats itself. And nowhere is that more apparent than the tech industry. Every year, hopeful entrepreneurs with a twinkle in their eyes introduce the next app, gadget, or concept that will change the world and free us from the tyranny of talking to other humans, looking something up, or making our own dinners.
But not every idea is a winner. And not every winning idea will last forever. For every Silicon Valley darling currently basking in the glory of a Job Well Done, another is winding down, shutting off the lights, and penning a sad Medium post about their company's demise. Do not weep for them; they will surely return with another big idea. But for now, let us reflect on the tech we lost in 2018.


Nintendo's Miitomo Social Network
Nintendo's first foray into mobile apps was a social network called Miitomo, which launched in March 2016 alongside the My Nintendo loyalty program. It allowed friends to converse on iOS and Android by answering questions and sharing responses through Twitter and Facebook integration. But it could only be used when connected to Nintendo's servers, and on May 9, Nintendo shut those servers down. 


Spotify Running
In 2015, the music-streaming service launched Spotify Running, which served up content based on your tempo and listening history. In February, Spotify said it was "retiring" the Running feature ahead of an April revamp of its mobile app. 


Kuvee Smart Bottle
Can't polish off a bottle of wine in one sitting? The $199 Kuvee Smart Bottle was intended to help you keep wine fresh for up to 30 days via a valve system built into the canteens that prevented oxygen from touching the liquid. A small Wi-Fi touch screen on the front of the bottle, meanwhile, offered serving tips and food pairings, and info about the number of glasses remaining in each carafe. But this "Keurig for wine" ran out of money and announced plans to shut down earlier this year.


Lytro
The Lytro Light Field Camera, designed to capture images that you can focus after they've been shot, hit the scene in 2012 and earned a "fair" rating in PCMag's review that year. The company's follow-up Illum camera (pictured) also underwhelmed. Consumers apparently agreed, and in 2015, Lytro shifted its focus to virtual reality with Immerge, a camera rig targeted at big-time production studios with deep pockets. That didn't do the trick either, though; earlier this year, Lytro announced it was shutting down.


Google URL Shortener
Google loves to shut things down, and on the chopping block this year was its link-shortening service, goo.gl, which dates back to 2009. "Since then, many popular URL shortening services have emerged and the ways people find content on the Internet have also changed dramatically," Google said in March. It announced plans to replace the Google URL Shortener with Firebase Dynamic Links, which are "smart URLs that allow you to send existing and potential users to any location within an iOS, Android or web app."


Google Goggles
Google Goggles also dates back to 2009, and served as an early version of Google Lens. Point your phone at an object, snap a photo, and Goggles will give you more information about what you're looking at. By 2014, Google acquired Quest Visual, the developer behind the impressive Word Lens app. In June, Google unveiled the standalone Lens app, making Goggles a bit redundant. By August, the Goggles app was directing users to Lens.


Google Allo
To help show off the power of the Google Assistant, Google in 2016 released Allo, an AI-powered chat app. When PCMag reviewed Allo last year, we found it to be a beautifully designed app that was an enjoyable experience for chatting with friends and sharing media. But we were skeptical that it could beat the chat app competition. Google apparently agrees. In a December blog post, Google said it's now focusing on its messaging app Messages as well as "working closely with the mobile industry to upgrade SMS." The end goal is to do away with SMS and replace it with Rich Communications Services (RCS). For RCS to shine, Allo must die. RIP.


Google+
This one was surprising, but also not. In October, Google announced that it would shut down the consumer version of Google+ over the next 10 months, following the discovery of a bug that it opted to keep secret. The search giant framed the decision as one that makes sense given that very few people actively use Google+, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the move came after Google discovered a bug that left private user information open to developers in March, but declined to alert users for fear of regulatory scrutiny.


Google Inbox
While few consumers shed tears over the demise of Goggles or Google+, Google Inbox was another story. In a move reminiscent of the much-maligned shutdown of Google Reader, the company said it would shutter Inbox in March 2019 "to focus solely on Gmail."
The app, which groups similar types of mail together into Bundles and offers a handy snooze feature that lets you postpone emails to a future date, earned an "excellent" rating in PCMag's review. But the new Gmail, which rolled out in April, incorporates many of the features Google first debuted in Inbox, like Smart Reply and Nudges, plus newer ones like Smart Compose, so Inbox had to go.


Digg Reader
Speaking of Google Reader, when that popular service closed up shop in 2013, one alternative people turned to was Digg Reader. But in March, that too went to the great RSS reader in the sky. Digg didn't provide much of an explanation ("Bummer, we know," it wrote), but the service fell out of fashion amidst the rise of Twitter and Facebook and never quite recovered.


Backpage
In April, the FBI seized classified advertisement website Backpage, a year after the site shuttered its adult section over a US Senate report that accused it of facilitating online sex trafficking. Still, the 93-count indictment claims that Backpage enabled child trafficking and earned more than $500 million in prostitution-related revenue since its launch in 2004.

 
Tor Messenger
In 2015, Tor released a beta version of its cross-platform chat program, which let you chat securely on familiar messaging services, like Jabber, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Twitter, and Yahoo. Three years later, however, Tor announced plans to sunset the app. The problem was threefold: Tor Messenger was based on Instantbird, which was no longer maintained by its developers; it was difficult to control metadata leaks; and Tor did not have enough internal resources to keep it going.


Oppo Digital
Have you jettisoned your DVD collection for video-streaming services? You're not alone, and that means fewer people buying DVD and Blu-ray players. As such, Oppo Digital in April announced plans to "gradually stop manufacturing new products." The company, which is unrelated to Oppo the phone maker, will still offer technical support, repair service, and firmware updates for its Blu-ray players, DVD players, personal and wireless audio devices for the time being. But don't expect any new products. "From now on, Oppo Digital will focus our main effort on organizing and ensuring long term support for the existing generation of products. As such, we will not have the resources to develop and release new generations of products," the company says.


Vine (Again)
Vine was effectively shut down in 2016 by its parent Twitter, which struggled to generate substantial revenue from the platform, despite its early popularity. In December 2017, Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann teased that he was building a new iteration of Vine, simply called "V2." But Hofmann dashed the hopes of Vine fans in May when he explained that "financial and legal" hurdles were preventing the project from getting off the ground. He is, however, expected to launch an all-new looping video app called Byte in spring 2019.


1TB of Free Flickr Storage
In 2013, then-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer hosted a big New York City press event to unveil a revamped version of the Flickr photo-sharing site, a new Android app, and announce that every Flickr user would get 1TB of free storage. Five years later, Mayer is gone, Flickr has been acquired by SmugMug, and that 1TB of storage is kaput, replaced with 1,000 photos or videos. On Feb. 5, SmugMug will start deleting images and videos until your free account is back down to 1,000 assets.


Best Buy Mobile Stores
Amazon Prime now has more than 100 million users; for $119 per year, shoppers can buy just about anything at all hours of the day and have it shipped to them in two days or less. For many, it's a much more efficient process than roaming the aisles of a big box store (package theft notwithstanding). But it doesn't help brick-and-mortar stores stay open. In March, Best Buy Chief Executive Hubert Joly announced the company would close all 250 of its mobile stores on May 31. The stores focused on mobile products and had a much smaller footprint than other Best Buys.
The move came ahead of another farewell for Best Buy: As of July 1, music CDs are no longer be offered for sale at any of Best Buy's outlets amidst declining demand.


Chloe Albanesius