Drones are taking off by the thousands and cars are learning how to drive all by themselves. We're definitely living in the future. But for every peice of emerging tech that stands to completely change the world, there are at least a dozen ideas that are never going anywhere.
And so here are just a handful of the year's worst concept videos, big flashy videos of some of the year's most far out yet dead-end ideas.
1. The Terrafugia TF-X Flying Car
Terrafugia has been talking about its upcoming, transforming flying car - the TF-X - for years now. This year, the company got FAA approval to test 1/10th scale models and says it expects its cars to be on the road (and in the air) by 2017. Yeah right, flying cars are always just two years away.
In the meantime, Terrafugia put out a new concept video [shown above] showing off its non-existent car's optimistic features like vertical take-off and landing. Between FAA approval and engineering challenges, you can expect to see this one precisely never.
2. A Jet-Equipped iPhone 7
There is a long tradition of amateur product designers coming up with concepts for new iPhones. The best/worst is probably that iPhone 5 concept with the holographic display and laser keyboard, but this one is a close second.
Mechanisms that will attempt to save a phone as it falls have actually been patented in several forms, but this CO2 jet version is patently absurd. Not only would it need a whole ton of tech to be crammed into a tiny case, but it would also require you to have CO2 on-hand to refill it after the drop. Totally ridiculous, but it's not like this is anything Apple is even thinking about anyway.
3. The Skarp Laser Razor
The Skarp Laser Razor is an idea that will basically never work for reasons we've covered at length, and while the video posted on the Kickstarter and later IndieGogo page doesn't have a whole ton of concept footage, the stuff that's there (starting around 1:45) makes it look like it'll work perfectly even though it never will.
4. The "RoboHan" Robot Phone
Unlike some of our other concept videos, this idea isn't exactly impossible; it's just bad. Sure, Sharp's RoboHan is arguably cute and definitely novel, but it serves no purpose other than looking sort of weird and is actively worse than any other phone at doing actual phone things. Not bad as a stunt, but absolutely horrible as an idea for a product.
5. Earthquake-Proof Beds
Initially designed by a Chinese inventor in 2010, these earthquake-proof beds got a new concept video this year, one that shows all the horrifying ways a mechanical coffin designed to save your life could be even more terrifying than the disaster it's saving you from. The original video has actually been taken down by its creator, but copies of it still exist elsewhere on the internet to preserve this horrifying idea for posterity.
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