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A Tribute to Tech that Died in 2016

By: Shivam Goswami

January 11, 2017

2016 proved to be a natural calamity for technology, taking the lives of numerous tech foundations.

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The following post by Ethical Hackers Club is a tribute to technologies we lost by the end of 2016, an article found on PCWorld.com.

We lost a lot of cherished consumer technologies in 2016. Let us honor their memories and learn from their shortcomings so that the next generations of technology will be even better. RIP Google Nexus, Vine, Sunrise Calendar, Pebble, and others. These are just the biggest examples of tech products that passed away in 2016, but that's not the end - the list goes on. View the rest of the departed tech here.

Samsung Galaxy Note7:

Samsung’s Galaxy Note7 was an exception, as battery issues caused the newly released phones to catch fire or explode. A hasty product recall failed to fix the problem, and Samsung eventually discontinued the entire product line. As for existing phones, Samsung has been trying to recall them all and is now bricking those phones through a software update to prevent any further safety risks. Samsung’s stocks and earnings have taken a dive from the fiasco, but the bigger question is whether the company can regain consumers’ confidence and whether we’ll see another phone under the Note brand again.

BlackBerry: 1999 - 2016

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Remember Blackberry, surely you do. "BlackBerry" was synonymous with "Professional"? The brand ruled business mobility, but Finally in 2016 Blackberry announced that it would stop developing its own hardware and will focus on software. It’s unclear whether we’ll see any BlackBerry phones with physical keyboards again.

Google Nexus: 2010-2016

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While Google allowed Manufacturers to make modifications with android OS many vendors started taking advantage by using preloaded adware on the handsets. While such tactics were on urge Google decided to launch the Nexus line of phones that ran on stock Android—the way Google's Android developers intended it to be. While Nexus phones were pretty decent from a hardware point of view, they were also kind of a failure. The main reason behind nexus was to show manufacturers what Google could do so that they can stop malicious activities on Google's Android by Vendors.Google hasn't exactly given up on the stock Android phone dream, but it decided to scrap the Nexus brand this year and relaunch the effort under the new Brand Name Pixel.

Vine: 2013-2016

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Twitter’s 6-second looping video service has reportedly struggled with management issues, strategy changes, and a lack of vision ever since it launched in 2013. And in October, Vine announced that its apps will be shutting down, though existing videos will remain online. While there have been some rumors of an acquisition to save the service, for now, Vine’s time is running out.These are just the biggest examples of tech products that passed away in 2016, but there are others, including Gawker, Samsung NX Cameras, TayTweets, Google Picasa, Apple's Thunderbolt Display, Project Ara, Microsoft Band, Meerkat.