OT: 10 Technology Disasters

10 Technology Disasters

By Eric Scigliano June 2002

What do a 17th-century Swedish warship, an opulent Chicago theater and a Kansas City hotel "skyway" have in common? All met catastrophic ends-and they have important lessons to teach today's innovators.

Let's face it: something draws us to a disaster, as long as it doesn't strike too close. And in all endeavors, but especially in technology, failures-even ghastly, gruesome, cataclysmic ones-can sometimes make better teachers than spectacular successes. The 10 examples offered below, drawn from a span of 373 years, show that though technologies change, many of the factors that make them go spectacularly wrong are surprisingly consistent: impatient clients who won't hear "no"; shady or lazy designers who cut corners; excess confidence in glamorous new technologies; and, of course, good old-fashioned hubris.

http://www.techreview.com/articles/scigliano0602.asp?p=0

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Received on Sat May 18 02:22:00 2002