The 10 dumbest tech products so far

Awful wearable PCs, gaming systems that made you sick, free handhelds no one would take, and more. What'll they think of next?

Number 8: Mira Mira on the Wall



Microsoft Mira (2002)

Who's the fairest of them all? Not this Mira wireless touchscreen display, which Microsoft unveiled with great fanfare at the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show.

The plan was that consumers would mount these LCDs on the walls of their homes and access their computers remotely. "Mira does for monitors what the cordless handset did for telephones," said Steve Ballmer at the product's launch." Well, not exactly.

At US$999 and up, the first Mira displays cost a wee bit more than a cordless phone And that wasn't the only problem, recalls Rob Enderle, principal of The Enderle Group: "It's like they said 'Let’s take a thin client home product, make it so it only works with the business edition of Windows (but only in the home), price it in line with a low end laptop, and wrap it with some really homely plastic.' Folks actually hid from the product."

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