Everything old is new again: https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/1001/110.html
I wonder how many of these will survive the bursting tech bubble?
> However, like many ideas far ahead of their time, the CD-ROM found few interested investors at first.
And then in 1975:
> Philips Electronics representatives visited Russell’s Battelle lab in the summer of 1975, and they discounted the entire premise of his work.
[1] http://www.computer-timeline.com/timeline/james-russel-compa...
(you'll probably point to DIVX but that was an experiment with a terrible business model, not a technological failure)
> Their efforts led to a 20-minute video disc in 1973.
> In 1974 Digital Recording Corporation announced ... the first device to digitize a color image, at a Chicago trade show. The response from large potential investors was rather cool.
And, there's LaserDisc, of course (although analog, unlike the digital disk in the above), which was somewhat of a flop (the ridiculous dimensions being part of the cause).
Tangentially related, BlueRay was more about just waiting for a blue led to be invented, than some new disc tech! [1]
[1] There was a really great youtube video about it, but can't find it. Se here's a bad generic recap: https://ssleec.ucsb.edu/news/nobel/professor-shuji-nakamura-...
LaserDisc is an interesting case: is it failed proto-DVD, or its own separate thing? (analog, more like an LP than CDs or DVDs)
Not all technological innovations involves a failed attempt at commercialization. Microsoft really did try (and fail) to sell tablet devices with WindowsXP, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC it wasn't just a prototype that they experimented with and then shelved until it could be refined later.
> Not all technological innovations involves a failed attempt at commercialization
My original comment:
> Do you have any good examples of tech that was immediately embraced without any prior examples or failures to monetize?
No goal post moving on my part.
Not sure I understand the MS tablet example, since it seems unrelated to the sentence before it (going against it).