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Friday 28th December 2007
The top ten tech flops of 2007 1:52AM, Friday 28th December 2007
As well as some fantastic innovations, 2007 saw some truly terrible product releases. Here are the biggest disappointments of the year:

1. AMD "Barcelona"
There's nothing inherently wrong with AMD's new quad-core Opteron processors - except for the fact they're rarer than punchlines on CrimeWatch.

Although delays have also beset the desktop version of the chip, the Phenom, Barcelona (the server version) has been a particular problem - there are still none available to buy in the country, despite the fact they were launched in September. Perhaps AMD uses the same couriers as Customs and Revenue?

2. Cre8txt keyboard
This tiny keyboard lets you type on a PC as you would on a mobile phone. Yes! No longer do you have to reach for that convenient "e" button - you can press the 3 key twice instead.

As if teachers didn't have it tough enough already, it's designed for use in schools. First text messaging taught children to write in barely legible slang, and now comes the cre8txt to destroy the last vestiges of the English language in schools.

WLL GV THS 1 A MSS

3. Datawind PocketSurfer2
Datawind promised mobile internet browsing with the PocketSurfer2, but made no mention in its promotional literature of the irritating delays and stress the frustrating interface and lacklustre screen would provide.

Using it to send emails was more difficult than running all the way to the intended recipient and reciting the message in person.

4. Samsung Flash Solid State Disk
Solid state drives are the future of mobile computing, and promise to be lighter, faster and more robust than traditional hard disks.

Unfortunately, Samsung's offering was actually slower than a mechanical hard disk and, at £9 per megabyte, considerably more expensive - it's like buying a Ferrari, only to be overtaken by a Ford Fiesta.

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5. Wrist Donut

We've seen our fair share of idiotic solutions to RSI, but one look at the Wrist Donut left us wondering if the crippling pain was really that bad, after all?

The brightly coloured mouse mat that you wear like a bracelet would look ridiculous in a 1980s workout video, let alone an office. This is one donut that definitely deserves a dunking. In the bin.

6. LaCie Hub
The very definition of form over function, the LaCie Hub looks eerily like Medusa's Head, with expansion ports sprouting from sprawling metallic arms.

The problem is the unit has all the natural balance of a hippo on ice skates, leading the thing to topple over the second you plug something into it. Not exactly £40 well spent.

7. Griffin iSqueez
Awful stocking fillers like this are the bane of every gadget lover's Christmas. This pointless blob of foam rubber keeps your iPod snugly wrapped up in your car's cup-holder, instantly cancelling out Apple's inspired design. Think of it as wrapping Kylie in a sleeping bag.

8. Myvu Universal Edition
Boasting the kind of aesthetics Eddie Murphy left behind in 1985, the Myvu glasses theoretically allow you to enjoy movies while keeping an eye on the world around you.

And while you stagger about, half blind, with a tiny video display partially obscuring your view, you can wonder to yourself if this was the worst £100 you've ever spent.

9. Philips LX2000 + 26PF532
The idea of buying an all-in-one media centre PC is that everything works together perfectly. This system promised so much, and the components looked great on paper, but it just didn't deliver the goods as a whole - just like the England football squad, really.

10. New Standards Keyboard
Have you ever tried writing a letter whilst one over the eight? It's a bit like typing on this alphabetically ordered keyboard.

In our highly unscientific tests, it took our team of 10 testers an average of 8.6 seconds to type the sentence "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" on the QWERTY keyboard, and a full 37.3 seconds to hunt down the letters and achieve a partial nervous breakdown on the NSK. Genius.

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