HD-DVD
Blu-ray might now be the high definition movie disc format of choice, but when it was first introduced back in 2006 it faced the rival format HD-DVD. Both used the same video codecs and had the backing of various Hollywood studios, but Blu-ray can hold up to 50GB of data, whereas HD-DVD was limited to 30GB at most.
It was a close-run thing, but eventually the Sony-backed Blu-ray won market acceptance over the Toshiba-backed HD-DVD. We therefore can't judge anyone who bought a HD-DVD player and a boat load of HD-DVD movies too harshly. Unless they did so just before Toshiba and its allies announced they were discontinuing the format after Hollywood deserted it. That's just silly.
Logitech iFeel mouse
Vibrating feedback is all the range in gaming you'd be hard pressed to find a gaming console that doesn't have motors built into its controllers to give physical feedback during gameplay. Logitech released an optical mouse equipped with such motors back in 2001, the iFeel. It sounds like a dodgy Apple-themed marital aid and was only marginally more useful. The iFeel could vibrate as the cursor passed over icons and menus. It might have had some use to sight-impaired computer users, but our IT geek didn't have that excuse when he bought this useless bit of tat.
Have you bought a useless gadget that we missed? Tell us about it by leaving a comment.
