Gadgetory

as we wind down 2014 it's easy to look back over the year with a soft rosy view of all the great moments in tech that have pushed us forward but that's not what I do I'm Donald Bell and here are some of the texts most embarrassing moments of 2014 starting off at number 5 Google barge remember when we found out that Google is building a top-secret project in the San Francisco Bay it was exciting were they building an apocalypse proof data center or a floating showroom of Google tech nobody knew and nobody will because the project reported to be budgeted at tens of millions of dollars was determined to be a safety hazard and number four Sachin Adela's advice for women in technology seeking a pay raise his bright idea for closing the gender gap keep quiet ladies and trust the system that created the inequality to begin with it's not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along to make matters worse he was speaking to an audience at the Grace Hopper celebration for women in computing he later apologized but it was hard to hear him with that shoe in his mouth speaking of Microsoft at number three the unbundling of connect 2.0 from Xbox one in 2013 Microsoft swore up and down that they wouldn't even entertain the idea of unbundling their new Kinect sensor from the Xbox one it was an essential part of their system and their vision for the future of entertainment in the meantime the lower-priced sony ps4 was kicking their butt in June Microsoft screamed uncle and started selling a Kinect less bundle for $100 less at number two Apple's iCloud security breach you know the one that leaked all the nude celebrity photos that we all secretly tried to look for and actually to tie for second place I'm going to throw an apples bright idea to shove that u2 album onto everyone's iPhone Apple even had to create a help page to show people how to remove their gift and that brings us to number one my vote for the most embarrassing moment in tech for 2014 the Amazon fire phone rarely do we get to see a giant company like Amazon launch a flagship product with such a deafening thud originally priced at $200 on contract Amazon heard the crickets and eventually dropped the price down to 99 cents yet I still haven't seen one in real life as of October Amazon is sitting on around 87 million dollars worth of unsold fire flops so there you go five moments from 2014 that the tech world would rather you just forget for an even longer list check out Roger Chang's list of text biggest flops and gaffes in 2014 over on CNET thanks for watching i'm donald bell and have a happy new year