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Overhyped Trends

Here are three allgedly hot topics we're tired of hearing about.

Microblogging: What are you doing right now? If the answer is "Washing my poodle in the kitchen sink," we'd rather not know. With short attention spans becoming the norm, services like Twitter and Pownce probably aren't going away anytime soon--but they're not very useful, either.

UMPCs: In 2005, Microsoft announced a bold new standard for mobile devices known as the Ultra-Mobile PC. Armed with touch screens, GPS, and Wi-Fi, these not-quite-tablet PCs were supposed to revolutionize how and where people compute. But by delivering a platform that's too small for true productivity and too large for genuine mobility, Microsoft ensured that the UMPC was pretty much dead on arrival, and new designs have done little to arouse consumer interest--Palm recently scrapped plans for the Foleo, a device with similar dimensions.

Kitchen PCs: For a while now, certain trade shows have been annual love-ins for companies hyping a future full of household appliances with built-in computers. In all these years, however, the best thing we've seen is LG's LSC27990, a $4000 icebox with a 15-inch LCD screen crammed into the door. It's mildly interesting to be able to watch a ballgame or get birthday reminders and weather reports while you're standing in front of the fridge (assuming you have a cable outlet tucked behind your appliance nook); but these overpriced, barely functional computers amount to little more than amusing proof-of-concept novelties. They're a far cry from the true smart appliances of the future.