Techs Biggest Broken Promises of 2008

We Start with a Micro Fuel Cell ...

Amicro fuel cell

Holidays? What holidays? Here at PCMag, we're too busy thinking about the Consumer Electronics Show coming up in early January to stop and smell the nog. We're getting e-mails and phone calls from PR reps by the boatload, each one promising a new product that will revolution the consumer electronics landscape as we know it.

The only thing is, plenty of these products never actually make it to market.

Naturally, this got us to thinking. How many products have we been promised in the past year that never actually hit store shelves? In honor of both the impending CES and the end of the calendar year, we've culled together some of tech's best unfulfilled promises of 2008.

Fuel cells in laptops: As we look more and more toward alternative energy sources, it make sense that laptop manufacturers would also be searching for a change from the old-fashioned lithium ion battery. For a few years now we've been promised the advent of the fuel cell--a more efficient technology than its predecessors. Unfortunately, we're still stuck in the development stages.

Check out the rest of our disappointments, after the jump...

MemJet printing: This technology was going to revolutionize the way we print, outputting anywhere from 60 to 360 pages per minute. Sadly, the technology has been pushed back to 2009. We'll believe it when we see it.

Microvision PicoP: 2008 was the year of the tiny projector for plenty of companies--not Microvision, though. The PicoP won't be seeing the light of day (or even a dimly lit board room) until 2009.

Palm Nova OS: Oh Palm, remember when you had the smartphone world in, well, the palm of your hand? The company's eagerly awaited OS didn't debut in 2008, but rumor has it that we'll be seeing it at CES 2009. Right Palm? Riiiiight.

The Phantom: The irony of this company's name has not been lost on the tech blogosphere. Phantom Entertainment promised this gaming system for years, without much of anything to show for it. However, the company does get points for actually having released an honest-to-god product this year: The Phantom Lapboard keyboard made its debut in June--a full two years after its original release date.

RealDVD: This "studio-blessed" DVD-ripping software got close to release--really, it did, if only all of those pesky movie companies hadn't gone out and sued the company over copyright issues. Whoops...

Ultra-wideband for PCs: Where was this low-energy, high-bandwidth technology in 2008? In the ether, naturally.

Duke Nukem Forever: Of course we'd be remiss if we left this perennial vaporware favorite off the list. 3D Realms has been promising this first-person shooter for a staggering 11 years. It's kind of the "Chinese Democracy" of the video game world, only Axl finally got off his leather pants and release that one. Perhaps some kind of Dr. Pepper-related promotion will finally light a fire under the programmers... (full Story)