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MiniDisc is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio. Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and was later discontinued in 2011. The minidisc is mostly known as a failure for Sony, but it is interesting to look back at an invention that attempted to predict a future trend.

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The ipod was released on October 23, 2001 as a pocket sized ultra-portable media player. Although it was small enough to fit perfectly in your pocket, it’s selling point was its ability to fit a whopping 1,000 songs. However it’s selling price was quite high for the average customer, starting at 399$ (about 680$ today). The ipod was a risk for apple, but it was a risk that paid off. As the years progressed, more affordable but equally as capable as the original ipod released like the ipod nano or the ipod shuffle. Sadly, the as the iphone came out, the ipod became obsolete as the iphone could do the same thing and much more. The ipod was discontinued in 2022 with an estimated of 450 million units sold in total.

The UMPC or the Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer was a new technological trend in the 2000s. Following the 90s where clunky and beige was the norm, pc makers created a frenzy of making everything smaller and smaller, eventually leading to these handheld computers. Although at the time they were perceived by many to be the future of computing, the trend died out rather quickly, probably due to the fact that it was not as convenient as one may think and it definitely was not much cheaper than a full size pc. The most notable models are the OQO models 1 and 2 or the Sony Vaio UX both of which mostly ran Windows XP but later ran newer OSs such as Vista. I think these things are very neat and really show a testament of technological advancement in the 2000s! :-)

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i regret getting rid of my wappy dog… :’)

oh how i miss the aqua mouse