#Fail: 15 tech flops of 2015

#Fail: 15 tech flops of 2015

'Hoverboards’ exploded
Self-balancing scooters, commonly referred to as "hoverboards," were one of the most talked about tech products this year -- but for almost all the wrong reasons.

After gaining a lot of attention for their red carpet and music video appearances, as well as their popularity with kids and teens, these handlebar-less Segways made news for catching fire and exploding.

Safety concerns caused airlines to ban them on flights. Amazon and Overstock removed them from digital shelves, major cities declared them illegal, and a federal agency says it's working "non-stop" to figure out what's causing them to burst into flames.

Hackers had their way with us
There were so many hacks this year, we couldn't fit them all here.

Two of the worst happened to Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder -- websites that promised intimate relationships.

Hackers also stole sensitive information on about 21.5 million government employees in July.

They stole money through the Starbucks app, hacked a giant database of kids' photos and chat logs, and learned to take over phones with a simple text or photo message.

After researchers discovered that certain Chrysler vehicles could be hacked, the company had to recall 1.4 million cars.

Oh, and Lenovo admitted to shipping laptops with adware installed on them.

Volkswagen used software to cheat emissions tests
Volkswagen was in crisis mode for most of the year after the company admitted to building vehicles with software that could cheat emissions tests.

The program was installed in as many as 11 million diesel vehicles around the world. The company said it would recall nearly 500,000 cars in the United States, and about 8.5 million in Europe.

The German auto manufacturer also acknowledged that some of its cars used outdated encryption, making it easier for people to steal vehicles.

Google Maps directed racist search queries to The White House
Google Maps pointed people to The White House if they searched for variations of the N-word with the word "house."

Google blamed the problem on its search ranking system, and apologized for the screwup after rolling out a fix.

Flickr labeled photos with racist and offensive tags
Many tech companies have been working on automated image-recognition software to help people search and find photos more easily. But there are clearly still some kinks to be worked out.

When Flickr introduced a new auto-tagging feature this year, certain photos of people were labeled "ape" and "animal." Some pictures of concentration camps were identified as "sport" and jungle gym."

The photo hosting and sharing site is owned by Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30) and has since fixed the issues.

Apple recalled Beats speakers that could catch fire
Apple recalled 223,000 Beats Pill XL speakers that used batteries which could overheat and catch fire.

Also in 2015 -- Apple issued a replacement program for the iSight camera on certain iPhone 6 Plus devices and 3TB hard drives in 27-inch iMac computers.

Reddit accused of censorship
Reddit removed several subreddits focused on hate speech and bullying this year.

"We're banning behavior, not ideas," former CEO Ellen Pao explained at the time.

But Reddit users accused the platform of censorship, and called for Pao to resign, which she did.

New CEO Steve Huffman defended his predecessor, but also said he would "reconsider" certain policies.

Google Maps was vandalized by pranksters
Someone within the Map Maker community put an illustration of an Android robot peeing on an Apple logo in a rural area of Pakistan.

The image was discovered in April, and Google had to suspend its public Map Maker tool temporarily.

Yahoo's Alibaba conundrum
Yahoo's board reversed course on its big decision this year -- selling its 15% interest in Alibaba.

Rather than spin off its $30 billion stake, Yahoo said it will consider breaking off its core Internet business into a separate publicly traded company instead.

But the end result essentially will be the same as the original plan: Yahoo will break away from Alibaba.

Investors aren't pleased. Yahoo's shares are down 34% this year.

Startups went public on shaky legs
Investors have been signaling warning signs that private companies are overvalued.

Upfront Ventures investors Mark Suster wrote in October, "Either we've discovered magical beans and elixir or perhaps we've gotten ahead of ourselves on valuation."

Square, Etsy, Box and Fitbit all went public this year but their stock prices have struggled. They may have been overvalued as private companies.

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